sion on earth. He says, “The Temple at Jerusalem was an empty house, and Israel an untoward generation. The assembly was now ‘the city of refuge’ for the slayer of blood, where those who bowed to the guilt of their Messiah’s blood could flee;” and in the note adds, “The assembly of God is ever since the city of refuge’ for the poor Jew; guilty of his Messiah’s blood, and fleeing to it he is safe from the avenger of blood.”
Mr. Stoney, in lectures and addresses delivered in Manchester, June, 1873 (pp. 15, 16), says: “One thing more—what I believe has done more detriment to the truth than any one thing yet, is the Gospel without the Church. I am bold to say it, and I say it anxiously; I have lost friends by it, because I have tried to maintain what is the truth. … There are those who have no Church, while they have derived their Gospel from us. We have heard of the gathering good into vessels. They have no vessels at all.” And again, “It is not that I regret the work of those to whom I have alluded, but I would not co-operate with them, I would not touch the net while they were touching it.”
Note.—Churchism here goes far enough to satisfy the most extreme. The last gentleman even saying that he would not help to cast the net for souls, or draw it in, whilst others were touching it who were not in his community. This is exclusiveness with a vengeance in a very literal sense.
But many lessons are derived from Old Testament histories. David began as a “little in his own eyes,” yet Solomon was great, and had a navy, with “ships of Tarshish,” freighted with a cargo consigned to Jerusalem. The vesssels were observable, and so was the cargo.
