The church has the charge of the world entrusted to it. When Christ had finished his work on earth, and went to heaven to carry it on there, he spoke of two powers to whom the continuation of the work on earth was to be committed. He spoke of the Holy Spirit, who, equally with God himself and the Father, should come in his name to convict the world of sin, and be a divine power in his disciples to reveal himself in them, and so make them witnesses for him to the ends of the earth. He spoke of his disciples as those whom he sent into the world, even as the Father had sent him. Just as entirely as he had lived to do the FatherÂ’s will in saving men and women, was his Spirit to do that work too. And just as wholly as the Spirit was to be devoted to that work, was the body, the church, to be set apart for it too. The whole body of believers, and every individual believer, was to be like Christ, the light of the world, placed in the world with the one definite, exclusive object of enlightening its darkness, and bringing men and women out of darkness into light
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