Will

J. N. Darby.

 

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(Notes and Comments Vol. 1.)

 

What is will? I have often thought and yet do not know, I mean have not sufficiently analysed. There is, strange to say, unconscious will - a dead, or better a sleepy man tumbles down, or even an animal in many respects does not act on his muscles. At any rate man - he holds himself up - asleep, he does not. Take a dead bird, its wings hang about, etc. - alive, they would not in the same way. It is not a judgment of preference; animal will is the mind to act on certain present motives - a pig runs to the food trough, he is shut in and cannot, but has a will - judgment of preference is not, discernment of right and wrong is not. There may be a general moral will to do right, but temptation determines the will which puts us in activity at the moment, i.e., lust may be stronger than the reflective will. Judgment of right is not even reflective will or intention, but reflective intention is not will, or is moral will, and not the will that decides conduct when man does actually will. I may will according to it, but will is the present determination actively to do, though I may be hindered doing. The man is determined when there is a will, he may have determined before, so as to purpose; will is subject to present motives, good or bad, in the creature when it acts as will - to the judgment of motives when it purposes. A man may purpose to seek pleasure, or, purposing otherwise, have his will actually determined by temptation. Purpose is my moral condition in itself then; will, my actual state as to power over myself and temptation, only the want of power connects itself with conditions on certain sides. But I doubt it can be called will, till there is an actual determination, when the matter to be determined is before us, perhaps before our minds, but before us as something to be done. But a vast deal of the moral state or condition precedes that, perhaps all - will being a result.

I may say it would be a good thing for me to go and visit such an one to-day, and I purpose doing it - "I will go and see," is another thing; the motives have determined the judgment and intention in the first case - the will overcoming the influence of obstacles in the second. There is no will till, having the object willed about before me, I am decided in purpose as to it. Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor (I see the better, and I approve, I follow the worse); here, video meliora, proboque, is no will - deteriora sequor is the fruit of will - to know, consent, take pleasure (Rom. 7), is not will, but besides that which in such case determines the will, to will parakeitai moi (is present with me). It was really the law of the new nature, but was brought into captivity, the law of sin carried the will away.

162 Christianity makes free too; man is perfectly free to will, i.e., there is no determination ab extra in his natural state; but he is not free in will, because the law in his members brings it into captivity, which is merely saying he has a sinful nature. It is a matter of fact, because the rule, or nature, or law of good and evil cannot change, and, however overlaid by false education or customs, can be reached by the truth, and so the word does by the power of the Spirit of God; it penetrates, and natural conscience resumes and asserts its empire - that does not set free, nor deliver, so that we carry out the will determined by the conscience - the hindrance of lust is there, but there is deliverance in Christ. But it is here that Romans 7, and natural conscience come together, the applied rule awakes the conscience, and gives it its title in the moral judgment. Besides that, quickening power determines the will, but still deliverance is to be sought, for right desires are not power, even when will is included in the desire. It will be given surely if sought, but that is another thing, and an important difference, because it casts us in dependence on God, gives the sense of guilt and inability in the flesh to please God, so that we have first to be in Christ. Redemption goes before power, and that is an immense fact, and alone puts us in our place, quod nota.

At any rate free-will has no sense, because there is no will till it be determined; free to will as to external compulsion is another thing, in that sense the will is free; but if I have a sinful nature, it is de facto inclined to evil, till I am born again. Conscience is another matter.

No being can have a will free, unless it can create, for otherwise it is always acted on by, i.e., is the result of, motives; hence, to say the will is in bondage is strictly true; morally, man unfallen had no will, for creature perfection is obedience; man, fallen, is governed in disobedience by corrupt motives, and thus is merely a sinner, and his will is under sin.

I have already spoken of free-will, but there are one or two points perhaps not clearly and shortly stated, if I remember right; nor the difference of sense in the word free, i.e., free from external constraint, and free morally and internally; in the latter sense it is pure nonsense. If it be meant merely that God does not hinder man from choosing the good, surely he is free enough, or that He did not force him to remain obedient when he was innocent, that is true - it would not have been a test thus, nor any real obedience at least proved - he might have been obedient without its being shown, or disobedient in will without its being shown. Man is free, if by that is meant that God does not hinder his choosing good, or force him to choose evil. But an interiorly free will is all nonsense for a creature determined by motives, and that is what is meant by free to choose. And were he what is called, free, he would be in the most absolute state of degradation. It never was, nor could be so; man was never a blank sheet, good and evil being before him, neither when innocent, nor now - but besides, to be so, he must be perfectly indifferent to good and evil, i.e., in the most degraded state possible (and if he be so, what is to determine his will?), or have no moral existence at all.

163 If it be said: But there is a latent disposition called out by the presenting good and evil - a latent disposition to what? If there is to one, then the will morally is determined - if to both equally (i.e., to neither when presented), then he is in the last state of moral degradation, and there is no ground in his nature for a preference. This is not true of God, for He loves the good, and hates evil. He is free to do what He pleases, and can will, and so create objects of delight; but a creature's place is to obey, not have a will in this sense of will. A free will is really nonsense, for a man where will is wills something, i.e., it is determined on an object, but of this I have spoken; but in the moral sense of choosing good and evil, it is a horror, a dark vacuity of evil to be absolutely indifferent to them. Historically it never was, man should have rejoiced in the good and enjoyed it before his fall, and did. He fell freely, but did not know good and evil - the moment he had a will, he was gone. When inclined to evil, to leave him to choose is mockery, or the proof of evil; in God's dealings it is the latter. It will be asked where then is responsibility? First, it is too late to ask as regards God. But I answer, it is as to its principle this - to live according to the relationship in which I am. That is true responsibility, I have to fulfil its obligations - this is true in every respect. The acquirement of a position by conduct is a fallen state, it is the principle of law. If a being is created in a given state, he ought to live up to that state - keep it. Now man has lost it, and is out of relationship with God, he is ruined on the ground of responsibility already - the law, which proposes life to him by his doing, is the means of convincing of sin. When Christ is presented, man is free to receive Him, and life in Christ for him; but his actual state is proved by his seeing no beauty in Him to desire Him.

Holiness

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To estimate holiness aright, we must first of all think of God Himself in His holy nature - and of a nature, a divine life in which we have fellowship with and enjoy Him. But for us, sinners, we must then take into account Christ, in and through, and by whom we have a pare with God - further we must take cognisance of the operation of the Holy Ghost, through whom all is revealed and imparted - lastly of the state and condition of the sanctified.

There is another point needed to be gone into to judge rightly of it, that is the object before us, which, as a means, sanctifies us; for the creature morally lives by objects placed before it, and acting on it. Besides all this, the Word of God, which is that in which all is revealed, and works effectually in us through faith.

With a holy God we have to do, with a holy God to be in communion - holiness becomes His house for ever. But it is important as a preliminary point. to distinguish between righteousness and holiness, both elements of God's nature and character in which we have to do with Him, and even practically that in which we are assimilated to Him in the new nature, "after God created in righteousness and true holiness" - I do so, because these are often confounded, to the prejudice of the soul's peace.

Righteousness, as contrasted with holiness in God, is the judicial estimate of, and dealing with what is right or wrong - involves responsibility to some one, and obligation in the one judged - and, in its exercise, the authoritative acceptance or rejection of what is presented to its judgment. It is used also for that which is the fulfilment of obligation, and acting according to what is due (and in this sense is true even of God), and satisfies that judicial estimate, but also for the just estimate itself too - the righteous Lord loveth righteousness - in all cases, its measure is consistency with the relationship in which we stand - in God, consistency with Himself and His own perfection, maintaining withal the obligation of those relationships in which He has placed us. It is thus doing right according to them, or judging justly how far right is done.

Holiness, on the other hand, is the abhorrence, in the nature, of what is evil, and delight in what is good and pure, and, when we speak of men, God having His own full place in our hearts,* as in God it is His separation from all evil, and abhorrence of it. one is connected with judicial title, the other with the delights of the nature.

{*We being creatures, must be set apart to something.}

166 Now we are clearly told that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." This, assuredly true, acts on the conscience, and it is all well; but then we seek to be holy that we may be accepted. But in this case, it is really righteousness which is sought - God's judicial estimate of us according to what we are - it is a question of acceptance, hence of judicial estimate, not of holiness, or our own delight in good, or hatred of what is evil - and feeling evil in us, we feel God cannot accept us. Thus, though there may be a holy nature, and an abhorrence of what is evil, and delight in what is good, there is never holiness practically till the question of righteousness is settled; because the holy nature acting on the conscience, this - our righteousness not being settled, nor our acceptance in righteousness known - necessarily raises the question as to that acceptance, and ought to do so. Suffice it to say that it must - hence the true desire for holiness destroys peace. When the question of righteousness is settled, and the soul thoroughly convinced of sin, "none righteous, no not one" - and that it cannot make it out, even if the will is present with it - cannot make it good as an obligation, which it is before God, the flesh not being subject to the law of God, as it cannot be - and has given up hope of righteousness in itself, and through grace finds Christ its righteousness before God - peace made by His precious blood, and He in the presence of God for us - divine favour resting on it in Christ, knowing that it is in Him, and that it is accepted in the Beloved, by one offering perfected for ever - in a word, washed from its sins through His precious blood, and not only so, but accepted in Christ in the sweet savour of His acceptance, then the delight in God Himself, from whose love all comes, is free, holiness has its free scope. We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have been reconciled to Him. It is of God's holiness we are made partakers, even when chastened.

This, then, is practically what holiness is - the soul in the new man in the light as God is, enjoying His purity (enabled to do it through the blood of Christ), and that in grace, having fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ; and the more we take it in this simple manner, the more really and practically shall we know what it is. If we are holy, we shall know what holiness is, only it will be enjoyed in its fulness and perfectness in God Himself, and so directly connected with love, for God is love; His other essential name is light, and in that we walk, being light in the Lord, and there enjoy, as we are formed by love. We have boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Christ - and what brought us there? Infinite love - and what do we find there? Infinite love - and in Christ, nothing in us inconsistent with it; and, walking with God, nothing in our minds or consciences. "We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation" - for this we must have life, divine life, to know and enjoy it, and by the power of the Holy Ghost be separate, through the eye being fixed on Christ, from evil to good. The simpler we apprehend this, the better, if we would know what holiness is. It is separation, in living communion, to God who is holy.

167 It is only as to the means of meeting the practical difficulties of many souls, that I pursue the subject into any details, showing how Scripture teaches us on the subject. I know not anything which will more fully express our calling in this respect, than the first verses of Ephesians 1, "According as He hath chosen us in him (Christ), before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and without blame before him in love" - this is the counsel of God as to us in Christ. The other part of it - being sons - is His prerogative and sovereign purpose, the good pleasure of His will. The first is according to His nature, both not only in Christ, but Christ's own place in which we are set by grace; it is the first which is according to God's nature, so that He cannot have other than such - this is our subject here. As it is here spoken of as the counsel of God, the degree of realisation is not. It is what His purpose about us is - it is identified with what God is, in His nature and ways, and what Christ was before Him; of course He is essentially the same now that He is glorified. The second part of the calling - sons - is relationship, but Christ's also - He is gone to His Father and our Father, His God and our God. on this wonderful and perfect place (we could have none other such), I have entered elsewhere; my part now is to weigh that part of it which is contained in verse 4. We may look at it in two ways, as God's nature thus imparted and reflected in us, and enjoyed in its perfectness in Him - or as Christ, as man before God, according to it. God is blameless in His ways - He is love and He is perfectly holy - we are called to answer perfectly to what He thus is. We are made partakers of the divine nature; the spirit of love and holiness is that of the new man in us, and, as such, its fruit blameless - hence it is said, we cannot sin, because we are born of God. Thus the Christian state is, with a nature derived from God, "born of him," and hence necessarily holy - to be "before God" in His presence; an infinite and infinitely perfect object - God Himself - before Him, with a nature capable, as being of Him, of enjoying Him. We must add, the Holy Ghost as the power of doing so. The divine nature, with God who is love, a divine and infinite object - "before him" - to enjoy, with no thought of self needed (for we answer to His own nature), save to know that His favour rests upon us.

168 Now, the actual accomplishment is imperfect because the flesh is in us - in heaven, perfect; but in this passage it is looked at in itself, without estimating the degree of accomplishment, and in Christ we are perfectly so now.

We may also look at it in Christ Himself, as Man here below - He was holy and without blame, always before God so, and in love; the same applies to verse 5, but on this I do not enter here. It is what we have to seek to realise - communion with Him who is light, being light in the Lord, and in the light as He is, called to have communion with Him, not grieving His Spirit who dwells in us. The measure of it in practice is walking as Christ walked, and walking in the Spirit as we live in the Spirit. Walking in obedience, we have our fruit unto holiness, a greater knowledge of God, walking in His presence and enjoying Him, and are more deeply imbued with His estimate of all things, with His mind, more separated to Him in spirit, before whom we thus walk. In obedient righteousness in Christ (for it is to Christ's obedience we are called) we walk, and increasingly in the atmosphere in which God dwells. Practically separated from evil, we live in that we are separated to, we delight in Him, have communion with Him, and are separate from all that obscures this, and distracts us. True we see through a glass darkly, then face to face; but the objects are the same - God revealed in Christ - and the nature in which we enjoy them, the same. We joy in God - we have the treasure, but in a poor earthen vessel, and needing to have our senses exercised to discern good and evil; still, we walk in the light as God is in the light.

169 I may now inquire into the means of so walking, and what and how it is, as to our place in this world. It is in every sense - place, state, relationship with God, nature and glory - likeness to Christ, and that in glory, for this is the only good. It is true, this includes glory as well as holiness, but so it is presented in Scripture - we are "changed into the same image, from glory to glory" - "he that has this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure."

But there is another element, which though collateral, cannot be separated from it, and that is, love. If God is holy, His nature is love as well as light, and He cannot, so to speak, be divided'; and thus divine love is inseparable from holiness. For divine affections in us is the very being of holiness, and these cannot be without divine love - we partake in them of the divine nature. Failure in love would not be holiness, but flesh and sin - self as a centre, if not positive hatred - and this is not holiness, for holiness is separation of heart to God in known love, and so walking in that spirit with others. This gives us too, superiority over the evil with which we have to say; this, in an infinite way, is in God too, in whose communion we walk in holiness, and then we are followers of God as dear children. Compare Ephesians 4, 5, and Matthew 5: 43-48, and Luke 6: 35, 36.

So we find in 1 Thessalonians 3, "the Lord make you to increase, and abound in love one towards another, and towards all men, even as we do towards' you, to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." A remarkable passage, showing the path of holiness, before whom it is measured and estimated - before God, even our Father; and, when and in what circumstances - the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with the saints in glory. Sin is always selfish - holiness inseparable from love. It is holiness before God and our Father. It will have its estimation in the time of glory.

Such is the nature of holiness in general as stated in Scripture.

We may now look at the blessed Lord, as the one who in every respect is the way and pattern of holiness to us. And first of life - we are born of God; but this by the Holy Ghost. It is a wholly new nature communicated and given, which Adam innocent had not more than Adam guilty. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit, partakes of the nature of Him of whom it is born, as every nature does. It is entire contrast with the Adam life in us; "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," and "the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other" - "they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh, and they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit" - "the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace." We shall have to see that the power and mind of the Holy Ghost is included here, the objects being there, as well as the nature; but the nature born, as we have seen, is of the nature of which it is born. So the Christian by faith has put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. Here "renewed" is that which is wholly new, was not before, not that merely which is not grown old God's seed remains in him and he cannot sin because born of God, not the flesh that is born of the flesh. It is a holy nature - Christ as life - our life the last Adam, not the first. "Not I," says the apostle, "but Christ that lives in me"; and again, "when Christ who is our life shall appear." And in formal doctrine, in 1 John 5, "God hath given to us eternal life, and that life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." "He has sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." He is "that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us"; and as it is expressed of this life in 1 John 2, "which thing is true in him and in you." In Him this life was the light of men - He was the light of the world.

170 Thus as He was the holy one of God here, only absolutely and perfectly as born, even as to the flesh, of the Holy Ghost - walking in love - so we, as partakers of life in Him, He being our life, are holy brethren, are saints, brought in as we have seen by His precious blood, but saints as partakers of the life also that was and is in Him.

If we look at that life in Him, we find perfect separation to God, love to Him and to us, and necessarily, separation too, consequently, from all evil, passing through the midst of it, but not touched by it, goodness and holiness in the midst of evil in the power of divine love - and that is our path.

171 This takes a double character in the Christian, according as we look at him as emerging out of a world of sin, in the power of this new life and the Holy Ghost, "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" - or as sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and coming thence, so to speak, into the world. The one we have in Romans 12, the other in Ephesians 4 and 5. In the former, we yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead - yield our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, our intelligent service, proving what the good and acceptable and perfect will of God is. Here it is the original principle of giving ourselves wholly up to God, separated, sanctified to Him. It is simply that - and that is much - and true of the believer; we have not love connected with it.

In Ephesians we have another aspect of the believer's consecration. He comes as a dear child, out of his Father's home, to show out his Father's character - "be ye imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ hath loved us and hath given himself for us, a sacrifice and an offering to God for a sweet smelling savour." He gave Himself - not just loving His neighbour as Himself - but gave Himself up, not merely as separated from evil to God, but in love to us, divine love, looking downward in love to need - hence a sacrifice for us, and also to God, looking upward in perfectness to what made the sacrifice perfect. This too is our pattern - "hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Here, while offering up to God is perfection in the sacrifice, love comes fully in - one is the measure of what we ought to be, as walking in this world as alive to God in Christ; the other is the measure of devotedness of walk, as manifesting God's nature and loving others, but still having the eye on God as the one towards whom we act, that all may be perfect. The lower the object in the love of grace, the greater and more divine the love; the higher the one to whom it looks, the purer and holier the affection, and here it is God Himself. Self is wholly got rid of in both - it is thus a holy love. We are not said to be love, for that is sovereign in goodness and free, though we are to love. We are light in the Lord, for we have a life in which is the purity of the divine nature - God's seed remains in us, we cannot sin. Such then is our life in its nature.

172 And as to this unselfish grace, we are called on, not to be, as Abraham, perfect with the Almighty, nor, as Israel, perfect with Jehovah our God, but perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. Such is our life in its nature, for indeed it is Christ Himself - "he that hath the Son, hath life." God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son.

But we cannot omit the Holy Ghost, who is at once its source and its power. We may consider the Spirit as inseparable from this life, as the stream is connected with its spring, or apart, as a divine Person who leads it, and reveals the objects by which this life is governed - "they that are after the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit." The Holy Ghost is, as we have seen, the source of this nature - we are born of the Spirit, and this is spirit. But the Christian is also dwelt in by the Spirit - the seal of faith in Christ's blood - our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost. We have liberty with God, and that as sons, and are delivered from the law of sin. The bearing of this on holiness is evident, indeed it cannot be without it; not only does it introduce us into the holy atmosphere of God's presence in confidence, but occupies our affections with what is there, making us abound in hope by His power. But His presence is a measure of holiness down here - "would I," reasons the Apostle, "use the temple of God to sin with?" So we are called on not to grieve that holy Spirit of God by which we are sealed. It keeps the conscience withal awake. The Spirit then is life because of righteousness, enables me to reckon myself dead, and to hold the flesh practically in subjection, and, by His power, I mortify the deeds of the flesh, so that my communion is not interrupted. He is the Spirit of adoption, and bears witness with my Spirit that I am a son, and so keeps me in the free enjoyment of divine and heavenly things - takes the things of Christ and shows them to me - has revealed the things that are freely given to us of God, enabling me to discern them. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (and this is based on redemption - a new place - in Christ), sets me free from the law of sin and death, and enables me, as a son, to enjoy the things which are above - yea to joy in God Himself - have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

We get this double basis for our walk in Ephesians 4, the having put on the new man, and not grieving the Holy Spirit of God. It is nothing less than God dwelling in us, and we in God - His love shed abroad in our hearts by His presence. How this is the very place, and breath of holiness, is evident; in such a state, according to the measure of our growth, what God is and suits His presence, and nothing else, is in the mind - see 1 John 4: 12-16. We have thus the highest and fullest character of holiness in the believer - a nature capable of enjoying God, derived from the Spirit - a holy seed of God in him, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in him - God dwelling in him and he in God - the same Spirit dwelling in him, shedding His love abroad in his heart. This is the fruit of redemption. God never dwelt with Adam, never with Abraham, but as soon as He had redeemed Israel out of Egypt, He dwelt among them - "they shall know that I the Lord their God have brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them" - here in an outward way, between the Cherubim. And now, so soon as Christ, as Man, sat down at the right hand of God, eternal redemption being obtained, the Holy Ghost descends, sent by the Father - the Spirit of adoption - in Christ's name; by Christ from the Father, to reveal His glory as Son of man above - to dwell in those who were washed in His blood, and He dwells in us individually, and collectively too. on the latter I do not enter, as we are occupied with personal holiness.

173 The Apostle Paul gives us the blessed effect, he desired for the saints individually, at the end of Ephesians 3, "Strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled up to all the fulness of God." John speaks more of the divine Personality of Christ revealing God, and so our dwelling in Him, and He in us - for habitually he does not distinguish God and Christ, speaking of Manhood and Godhead in the same sentence, though in chapter 4 he goes up to simple Godhead, and His presence known by the Spirit; Paul more of His mediatorial place - of the counsels of God accomplished through His work and in His: Person, and that to the glory of God by us. So that the form is different; still as one gives the fact, true through the Holy Ghost, that God dwells in us - all in whom Christ is - so Paul, in the desire of the saints realising their privileges, leads us up to the fulness of God.

174 But while this is the full blessedness of our present state, living here as creatures acted on by grace, there is another aspect of the operation of the Holy Ghost in us; that is, the fixing the affections and intelligence on the Word which the Holy Ghost reveals, and that with sanctifying power. Thus the Apostle in Ephesians I prays that they may know the hope of God's calling, and the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints; for the creature, whatever the excellency of his nature, lives by objects - is characterised by those that govern him - money - power - pleasure - in a word, our object, what our mind, our phronema is upon, is what we morally are. Thus where it is on Christ and on heavenly things, we are Christian and heavenly minded.

These then, the Holy Ghost reveals, fixing the affections on the object thus revealed, and so sanctifying the heart. Thus, so to speak, in its natural effect on the new man - "With open (unveiled) face beholding in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord." So in holy spiritual activity - we know that "When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, and every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure." So the Apostle in Philippians 3, "This one thing I do, forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to those things that are before, I press towards the mark for the calling of God above,* which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

{*("High," is ano the calling is "up above").}

So the exhortation (though the Holy Ghost is not the subject of the Colossians, but life), "set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth"; but these things are called "the things of the Spirit." "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." "We have received not the spirit which is of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." Hence our conversation is in heaven, and we declare plainly that we seek a country.

175 But this consideration of the sanctifying power of the object the Holy Ghost sets before us, gives us the true character and only measure of our sanctification practically - Christ in glory - "we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" - " conformed to the image of his Son, that he may be the firstborn among many brethren" - "as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." The only object and goal of the saint is the prize of the calling above. This one thing he does. Hence he purifies himself even as He is pure - knowing he shall be like Him in glory, seeks to be as like Him as possible now. When Christ comes, even his body of humiliation shall be fashioned like Christ's glorious body.

The goal and object of the heart of the believer is Christ glorified, only the present effect is sanctifying him according to that measure, leading him to walk withal as He walked down here, and to grow up to Him, who is the Head, in all things. As Christ ever looked up to His Father, and ever did such things as pleased Him - in His case perfectly - so we, He being our life, looking up to Him glorified, walk in our measure as He walked. Hence we read that Christ sanctified Himself - set Himself apart - as the Man in glory according to the counsels of God, that we might be sanctified through the truth - our souls formed by the revelation of that into which He is entered.

It remains to be noticed that it is the Truth - the Word - by which we are thus sanctified. The Word is the truth as to everything, but it is, as Christ was in Person, the revelation of what is heavenly amongst men, and perfectly adapted to man on the earth. Though it be made effectual, by the Spirit, in the heart, the Word is that by which all is wrought, from the giving of life, onward till glory comes. So, just before the passage quoted above from John 17, we read, "Sanctify them through Thy truth - Thy word is truth." Hence, as to life - "of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures" - man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. It is by words the Holy Ghost taught, that the things the Holy Ghost revealed were communicated. It is the incorruptible seed of the Word which endures for ever. Hence it is by faith - sinners are sanctified by faith that is in Jesus. The Word is the revelation of God's mind, and of all that is unseen, and, accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost, is faith in the heart; and thus we are sanctified and live by it, in communion with God according to what is revealed - are so far sanctified to Him.

176 It may be well here to note the way in which sanctification is used in the Scripture. It always means separation to God, consecration to Him; but it may be, in us, sanctification of our persons, or of the state of our souls. As soon as we are believers, we are set apart to God, sanctified - all Christians are saints; and hence, strange as it may seem, when sanctification and justification come together, sanctification comes before justification.

But then there is, or ought to be, as to our actual state, a perfecting holiness in the fear of God, as growing up to Him who is the Head in all things, - the enlargement of spiritual apprehension of the objects on which the Holy Ghost fixes our affections - an enlarged acquaintance with them, and living in that new creation, and, as to our path here, senses exercised to discern good and evil, more confidence in

{Found in this unfinished state.}

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NOTE. - In general the heavenly millennial blessedness is far more largely brought out in the New Testament, as well as the Old, than the time when God shall be all in all. But the blessedness of the latter has struck me as being amazingly great in this way. There is not so much conferred, not so much official glory, relative excellency of position, conferred glory, if we think of being with Christ, though indeed that will never cease, but see where we shall be. The Lord is as second Adam, the proper human Head of the whole blessed race. They stand as His brethren, are like Him, He the Firstborn no doubt, and channel of blessing, but still the Firstborn among many brethren, in the same place, state, and image, though He at the head of it. They are all of one, and now completely like. Yet He with whom they are thus connected - one common race, though He be the head of it - is one with the Father in the unity of the divine nature. What a place to be in, how close the association! surely leading to adoration, for the nearer we are, the more we adore; yet still how wondrously near! How intimately associated with divine things, not merely conferred blessings, though all be conferred, and so doubly appreciated, yet still how near for enjoyment! How deep the peace, and full the blessing, when we are fit and competent to enjoy it! I apprehend our millennial nearness will be education for this, as our present state for that. But it is a wonderful place, and near enough to be peaceful enjoyment.

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177 NOTE. - We ought to think of the joys of Christ as well as His sorrows. Nothing shows where a man's heart is and what it is, more than when oppressed, distressed and full of sorrow, where his heart finds its joy and if it finds a joy unreached by it. We see these joys in Christ a secret comfort in the midst of His sorrow. He had meat to eat which man knew not of. Besides His communion with His Father there was this working of love to us. Paradise shone in upon His heart in comforting the poor thief. "Go in peace" refreshed His spirit in the house of the Pharisee. "She hath done it for my burial" justified Mary against the reproach of selfish man. "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes" was His joy in the sense of the heartless rejection to which the wickedness of man subjected Him. How blessed to the heart besides learning where His joy was to think that He found it in the working of love to us!

Image and Likeness

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FURTHER NOTE

I certainly think that spiritual relationship to God is much more founded on what is spoken of in chapter 2 of Genesis, than the recital of chapter 1. In chapter 1 it is much more the place man holds in the whole creation - no doubt a special and distinct one, still as taking his place as of God there; chapter 2 is his distinct relationship with God in connection with his nature.

He is the image of God and likeness in chapter 1; he is the genos (offspring) in chapter 2. But it is a wonderful place.

In James 3: 9, it is homoiosin (likeness) not genos, and Acts 17: 28 condemns the idea of this likeness being anthropomorphism.

As to man's creation in the image and likeness of Elohim, I think we must add the exercise of voluntary thought. This is of immense moral importance as connected with responsibility. It is not mere happy obedience to God, flowing from an undivided, untempted nature, kept in its unity by Him without another thought, but obedience connected with consequences; this we have revealed as the basis of all, not with knowledge of good and evil - it was no evil in se, but disobedience. But this was connected with another immensely important thing - the consciousness of a special connection with God, and God's special interest in him, wrought by breathing from Himself into his nostrils the breath of life.

Now as God must have had, and must have His delight in Himself? so Adam had his blessedness in God in this conscious connection. This was the point of trial; he gave it up, alas! (yet, through grace, for blessing), for self, and satisfaction to mere self. The fall was total; externally disobedience, but more than that, departure. He gave up God, and his connection with Him for an apple - and worse, for self. It was not the knowledge we have now of what God is, who has so blessed him - that is the new creation, wherein we are renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that has created us in righteousness and holiness of truth - but it was the blessed possession and consciousness of the connection of having to do with God according to His love and thought and delight, as God delights in Himself because He is perfection; all the communications of God in chapter 2 mark this. This position is not lost but ruined, and the necessary source (unless a new bond be found as in the blessed Lord, by the incarnation, death and power of resurrection, or life in redemption) of eternal misery. There is disobedience, and Christ has died for that. This is bad enough, but there is separation from that, from the consciousness of which by our nature we cannot be separated, and this is what is so dreadful. The renewal, I need not say, is in Christ beyond, and God being glorified as to all the evil. He is the image of the invisible God in a higher sense, for here the knowledge of good and evil is come in, and He is the manifestation of God in love in the midst of it.

179 This puts man in a wonderful place, only making his failure the more dreadful - no creature can stand - his recovery the more glorious, and gives us to see the absolutely complete character of redemption - a second Adam, though bringing us livingly unto Him. Dependence in obedience was his place - not using his liberty or power for his will; that place the blessed Lord took, and, in the same responsibility, kept in perfect grace and perfect submission, preferring His connection with His Father to all, learning obedience, though always having no will but to obey ("Lo, I come," etc.) - but renouncing all self to do so. And He bound the strong man in the midst of ruin and evil, as Adam failed in the midst of blessing. But besides He bore the abandonment, in the full consciousness of the divine joy of connection as none but He could know it, into which we, by guilt, had voluntarily, and to our eternal ruin, run; we, thus brought back, restored, reconciled to God, according to this perfect work of grace, our sins and all our once condition, in which they were committed, wholly gone through His work, and serving now only to make grace known. What a wondrous thing is redemption!

In Adam there was proper personal intercourse (i.e., with God), responsibility and relationship - intelligent relationship with Eve given to him of God - and everything else subjected to him by God. The consciousness of this connection is far more intimate and powerful now, because it is by the Holy Ghost, much more properly divine in Christ; with Adam it was as a living soul - his own nature. This gave it its own character and importance, but it was evidently a different thing. It is a divine bond now - "we joy in God"; it was responsibility as a creature then, excellent and admirable as was the place he held, and had been put in, the more so as an image of Him that was to come. We must not confound being the image of - and being made in the image of (i.e., of Elohim).

God's Questions to Man

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The questions which are put to man by God are very remarkable, as shewing the position in which man was, whether in the first Adam, or when put by Jesus in the second - for it is this difference which is the wonder. First, God says, "Adam, where art thou?" - he was away from God - He had to ask where he was, i.e., to put his real state to Adam's conscience. Adam had hid himself; he was naked, and could not, dared not appear. Away from God, naked - but the question said he was separated from God, and that by his own conscience. Terrible, horrible condition! Such was what the first question brought out.

The second is, "Where is Abel thy brother?" here his malice, as murderer, against his brother. Here it was the not loving his brother or neighbour, as before not loving God; I speak of the principle. It was the positive active wickedness of man's heart when departed from God, and here also it was hatred against what was connected with God, and in His favour, and had the signs of His favour upon him. This was fully shewn in the rejection of Christ, of which this was the first manifestation in principle and type. (It is a clear figure of the blessed Lord's rejection by the Jews, as Cain is of them.)

Last, it is not God simply addressing responsible man as such, but a glorified Man who is indeed the Son of God - the Lord, gone into the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. But though the Lord "God over all blessed for ever" (for who but He had the title to put such a question?), yet He was Himself a man who had died for sin, for the sins of others, had accomplished Abel's sacrifice; Himself had put all His people's sins away, glorified God as man - accomplished righteousness, so that in virtue of God's righteousness, He, as man, was on high - in whom man had taken his place in the presence of God in the divine glory - the new Man - the heavenly one - according to the full glory of the desires and counsels, and the perfect display of God's character, power and glory - and that in respect of sin and man's ruin.

A Man in divine righteousness in divine glory, and the perfect display of divine love in being there. It is not now simply God supreme, and Judge who asks "Where art thou?" "Where thy brother?" It is Jesus in glory in righteousness, who owns His poor members on earth as Himself - "Why persecutest thou me?" He had men on earth who were one with Himself - what an infinite change! Man, too, had been manifested in Paul in the Cain state; not even content with that, he was in the condition of a Christ-rejecting, Abel-slaying Israel. He is active enmity, not content with Christ's death, nor passively resisting them at Jerusalem, persecutes them even to strange cities. He is the strongest ｅxpression of resisting the Holy Ghost's testimony, and gives his testimony to putting Christ-beloved ones to death, and seeks himself to kill them. To him sovereign grace is shewed as a pattern of God's ways, - forgiving even the Cains - now rising up over the extreme and highest wickedness of man, and on the other side owns the poor remnant as being Himself. Grace to the chief of sinners, to hostile - resisting - Christ persecuting - Holy Ghost resisting Israel; and the poorest feeble saints one with Christ, members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones - the Church. Such is the testimony of the question of grace (though addressed to the very then form, and that, the highest possible form of sin) when Christ has taken His place as Man glorified, when redemption for the chief of sinners is accomplished, and the Head has taken His place, so as to own the Body as in His blessing below.

182 It would state it clearer to say, how remarkable the difference between the questions God puts to man in respect of his responsibility, and that which can be put, and is put when Man is in the glory of God, in virtue of the accomplished work. That was then man's place in the presence of Him who is "God over all blessed for ever," owning others as one with Him. It is the contrast between God on earth putting the question, according to His majesty, to man in his responsibility - he was in sin, and Man, "God over all blessed for ever," who puts it, being in Heaven in virtue of accomplished redemption.

He cannot accuse of that height of wickedness at which Paul was, without owning all believers as one with Himself in glory. Paul (Saul) was slaying them because of Christ whom he could not reach in heaven; his resistance to the witness of the Holy Ghost was against the members - to convict him of the sin, Christ owns them such.

This was one part of this wondrous truth, the other is shown in the reasoning of Ananias. The reasoning and confidence of heart with the Lord, shows the intimacy and familiarity of the disciple, produced by Christ's speaking as one having a common interest with His people. Blessed community of interest in grace! Hence Ananias speaks in the same, and reasons with the Lord in his foolishness. Yet as He had spoken of Saul's praying as the happy sign as we might be, now He does not reproach Ananias, but tells him to go as Saul was a chosen vessel to Him, to bear His name, and so on. What a place we are thus set in relatively to all without us and within, through union with the Lord Jesus!

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183 NOTE. - God justifies. How ineffable must our state be in His eyes, i.e., in truth. He cannot approve or justify, but according to His own nature and being. His approbation must be according to what He approves. What a state for us to be in! In Christ, that God not only pardons our sins, but justifies us. No doubt those whom He justifies are ungodly in themselves, but His justification is the seal of His absolute approval of what they are, according to what He is. What an infinitely perfect place to be in! It is God who justifies - who justifies according to the unalterable judgment of His nature. This is true even as regards our sins, for He is just by reason of Christ's work in doing it. But how much more as in Christ, when it is the positive approbation of us in our place. And in fact, not only has He perfectly set aside our old sins, but glorified God so as to have this place as man, and we in Him.

Promise

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The promise, without condition, is given of God, and must surely be accomplished, but it does not raise the question of righteousness, but it does not satisfy it either, and while we lean merely on that, we cannot have peace. Conscience is before promise, not only responsibility, but knowledge of good and evil, or right and wrong.

(Note: the bruising of the serpent's head is only a revelation of the second Adam, and His glory and title, not a promise to the first; Abraham's is a promise, the blessing of the nations being connected with the seed.)

Hence, man cannot really meet God till his conscience be purged, or by meeting, feel the absolute present need of it, not of help, but of present purging, his state being made sensible to him by God's presence.

The law raises the question of righteousness, in claim on the conscience, and condemnation on God's part, necessarily, if not fulfilled.

The promise here depends on man's fulfilment of the condition, but the question of righteousness is raised; the promise may encourage, but it has nothing to do with satisfying the claim of righteousness.

Christ comes (man rejected also the fulfilment of promise in Him), He purges the conscience, accomplishes righteousness, makes us the righteousness of God in Himself. The fulness of the effect of all promises is in Him, and is the testimony, and accomplished proof of divine love, which indeed lifts the Church above all promise. Conscience, promise, law, all find their close in Christ, only promise rests on the same basis as He that is absolute, perfect, sovereign grace.

Prayer

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The more simply we act on divine precepts and exhortations, the better, for they are the fruit of absolute divine wisdom, which knows divine perfectness and human wants, met in Christ too; but I would say a few words on the real character of prayer.

The answer to prayer seems to me the going forth in divine actions in power - what has flowed forth from divine wisdom, forming desire and wants in the soul. This connects itself with love, dwelling in love, and hence connects itself with confidence which faith expresses. Hence, if it be a mere lust, or to consume it on lust, it is not answered (James 4: 3), or is answered in chastisement - is a Kibroth hattaavah (graves of lust); if it be in the Spirit, and the prayer of faith, it is answered according to the request. Thus also it is connected with the moral state of the soul - the entering, first in the 3 nature of the thing desired, and then spiritual acquaintance with God's will, into the thoughts of God, and what His love would have and cause us, as moved by that love, to desire. Christ, perfect in this, could say, "I know that thou hearest me always," save in atonement, where yet, in result, He was yet more gloriously heard.

We are often mixed in our thoughts - there are things that press on us as human beings down here, and we cast ourselves on love, and are sure to be met in love, though the answer may be other than we might seek; but God meets the moral intent of the prayer - what His Spirit has produced - though the positive request, in which wisdom failed, may not be accomplished in itself. But what moves down to us is always what has moved up to God, as wrought in us by the wisdom of God, and the confidence wrought in us by dwelling in love; hence, our prayers should flow, and do where real, from what is immediately drawn from Christ being in the heart by faith - identity of interest with Him (through grace) in the secret of the Lord with us. But there may be the sense, thorough spiritual apprehension of the holy goodness of God, of need according to it, and desire of heart towards it, and yet not intelligence of the divine way of meeting the need; this is the case in Romans 8, but He who searches the heart knows the phronema of the Spirit, for He intercedes for the saints according to God.

186 Grace comes down, and works through the circumstances, though there may be even no remedy for the circumstances, but there is a want, a desire according to God - the Holy Ghost is there.

Then, too, all things work together for good to them who love Him; faith realises God's intention - hence, in the knowledge of His will, knows that it has the petitions - and this reliance on the ear and arm of God is ever met. Grace comes down, and takes up its place in Christ, and in faith through Him, in the wants of men and saints down here, and in Christ, according to the wisdom and mind of God, producing perfect confidence in His love, and in the activity of that love; and so in Christ too, as Lord in its place, He was perfection in this down here - we, according to the measure in which we enter into His mind.

But the great general principle is, that what came down into our wants in wisdom, goes up and is answered in power; but this coming down is in grace in Christ, so that it is immediately connected with divine love, and the confidence of faith expresses this. The great secret is to be with God. If God trusts His mind with one, and thus he is a prophet, then the action follows - God does not let His words fall to the ground; and to this there is analogy or approach, when we walk wholly with God, though there be no official function, and, in the case of the prophets, what was announced authoritatively was at any rate sometimes, always in spirit habitually, prayed for, as James teaches us in Elias for the famine, so authoritatively announced in history. And so the Lord Himself, in the case of Lazarus. But what a place this gives to prayer - dependent intercourse with God in grace, as admitted into His interests, though encouraged to bring every want in childlike, perfect confidence in Him, because He has taken up all our interests into His own love.

Divine wisdom, acting in the midst of this world, in love, looks for the exercise of divine power. It is not simply divine wisdom, but as Christ Himself, divine wisdom exercising itself in the midst of evil; then, as we have seen, dependence is wrought out in it, and confidence where the divine will is known with certainty of answer. Divine power at our disposal, and when not, when it is the ｅxpression of a want with submission to that will and confidence in divine love which gives peace; "If we ask anything according to his will," etc., and "make your requests known . . . and the peace of God shall keep your hearts."

187 As regards prophets, spoken of above, you have Abraham and Abimelech - "he is a prophet, and he shall pray for you"; it is nearness to God which gives power, i.e., enables to dispose of it - "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

I see no difficulty in God's answering prayer connected with general laws, if we allow God to be free to act in His own world, as free as I am. Do I change general physical laws, when I go on request to visit some sick person? My will - how, I know not - acts on and by those physical laws; gravity is in my feet, or in the earth, force in my muscle, electricity in the nerves which set it in motion, yet I, in my poor way, have answered a prayer. Now I fully recognise more power in God, because He can, I need not say, not only change His laws, but, without doing so, give force to agents in them - produce gastric juice more powerfully, or more electricity into the system at His will, without introducing a single new element, or law which governs it. Laws remain the same; His will interferes to produce agency by them. He may work a miracle - raise the dead - which is by no law - has done so. But I do not speak of miracles, which take place when He changes a law, as when He makes the hatchet swim, but of when He works by law - of particular effects of His will. This may be miraculous as when a strong east wind acted on the sea, and another took away locusts, or brought quails, but He may give special activity, or quantity to agents which act by laws regularly. I am sure, at any rate, He hears and answers prayer. The very action of mind on man's frame is so wonderful, that such results may be produced, and God's own mind, as to external circumstances, that I see no difficulty at all. Laws which bind nature I admit; laws which bind God I do not. Besides many or most prayers refer to spiritual things.

The difficulties, as to prayer changing God's mind, etc., which sometimes puzzles a sincere soul, and is common with infidels, are I think a mistake.

As to the bright effect of it on our souls, it is just the same principle as speaking to them, the moment I believe that God works the real work Himself. God not only gives us blessing with Himself, but He gives us a part in the other part of His blessedness, viz., blessing others. I preach - man gets eternal life - yet it is wholly God's work, not mine; yet God graciously gives me a part instrumentally, yet as owning entire dependence on Him in it. This dependence is more fully owned in prayer; God does the work, but not more than in preaching, but I am more directly intimate with Him - expose my desires - love to souls - their wants - or of His Church, and He acts as He did in preaching. And I have more in common with God than in the latter, I reach more difficult cases, where speech cannot be, and distant cases, the power of Satan, the world, and every hindrance to souls I cannot reach even. There is more intimacy, common interests with God, though in dependence on Him, and a wider sphere than in preaching.

188 It applies, too, to all action which we can seek from God, even our own wants; only that when love would not give what we ask, we may not receive that we ask for.

Life

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The connection of life, the sanctifying word, and glory is very interesting in Scripture. Connect the following passages: "the truth shall make you free," and "the Son shall make you free" - and that in contrast with being the servant of sin; then, "Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy Word is truth" - "For their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth" - for the Spirit takes of the things of Christ, and shows them to us; but this is the heavenly glory, especially of His Person, into which He is entered in following the path of life - hence, "we, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." This is particularly brought out also in the Lord's work, and our aspirations, in Ephesians 5 and Philippians 3. In Ephesians 5 we find the Lord having loved the Church, and given Himself for it, sanctifies and cleanses it by the washing of water by the Word, that He may present it to Himself, a glorious Church, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Now, one would say, the cleansing has nothing to do with glory - yes, it is the realising in a life, already given - which, spiritually speaking, is Christ - all that is in Christ thus glorified; we are changed into His image; in living principle, and nature it is there. It is objectively realised, and the life formed into it, and all inconsistent removed by the communications from a glorified Christ to the soul - we grow up to Him who is the Head in all things.

Then comes the physical change, by change or resurrection, so that the body also partakes of it, according to its nature, see 2 Corinthians 5, and Romans 8: 11. So in 1 John 3, "we know that we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And everyone that hath this hope in him, purifies himself, even as he is pure." So the course of the Christian - Paul would know the power of His resurrection - go through anything for it - having the excellency of the knowledge of the glory of Christ, and his hope being to be raised up from among the dead - he has not yet attained, nor is already perfect, but, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth to the things which are before, he presses towards the mark of the high prize of his calling in Christ Jesus - the calling ano (above). When Christ comes, the vile body will be fashioned like His glorious body - but all tended, in one laid hold of for it, towards the result of the calling above. This gives a true character to the whole Christian life; it flows from this, "which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is now past, and the true light now shineth," and is expressed with power in Hebrews 11: 5, "Enoch was translated that he should not see death; for God took him, for before he was translated he had the testimony, that he pleased God." So indeed of Christ, only it was always perfection, "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." This, then, is our life.

190 Note the extremely full and elaborate development of the Christian's character, walk and spirit, as partaker of the new life, in Colossians 3.

Realism

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It seems to me that the disputes, between Realists and Nominalists, arose from confounding the acquirement of knowledge by the mere human mind, and the original divine intention and purpose in creation. God created Adam an individual man no doubt, but also eth ha-Adam (the man) - that kind of being, and in His image after His likeness. A child may know man in its father, and gradually generalise, because it has only human sources of knowledge, and humanly; man is only an idea. But the faith that believes in a Creator, knows that God created a kind of being which is that according to His thought. So even with the Church - Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, to present it to Himself a glorious Church. Now it was not an idea with no reality, He was going to present it to Himself - it did not exist actually till it is built up of Him. Whether we call an idea in God's mind a reality - which it must be - is a question which man may decide - He calls the things that are not, as though they were. Still, they have reality for faith, according to God's mind who chose to have such a thing, though the mind may learn by abstracting, and so the universal be, as to his learning it, a name - but he would not have it to learn, were it not really an existing thing in the thought and purpose of God. God had a certain purpose about the creation - man - connecting it, redeemed, with His Son. Other creatures have not that place - I say, What is man? and there is an answer, and an answer which will be accomplished. only there may be thought to be a difference between classes or races, and compound ideas - as a state, a church; but it is not well-founded - only, one is natural order, the other a constituted state of things. But if God had in His mind to have a church, it is a real thing, not merely a name, nor indeed is abstraction needed here - I have only to embrace God's idea of it. So of the state; if it were God's will to group people under authority or government, the thing is a real thing, and the name the name of a reality, though here abstraction may be called for, as He may allow different forms of government, each of which may group men in a state. Men's classes when they are genera (not species), may be fictitious, and merely for convenience, but that is nothing to the purpose if there are definite species.