Pharisees coming together to plot against Christ; and the eagles being gathered together to the carcase; and gathering together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“In strictness, it may be conceded that it is ‘gathered,’ and not ‘met.’ But when he says, in regard to this distinction, The Holy Ghost gathers souls to Jesus on the ground of salvation; and this, wherever convened, is the assembly of God,’ he is guilty of importing into the midst of our Lord’s words an element which is foreign to them, and which utterly subverts their character and force. He mistakes the whole power and grace of the passage. There is nothing either expressed or implied in it about ‘the Holy Ghost’s gathering.’ This is a mere creation of the imagination. Neither is there any reference to something being ‘convened’—he does not say what—in order to make it the Church. All the gathering and all the convening found in the passage is, ‘If two of you shall agree,’ etc.
“In truth, his observations, as in so many other instances, are simply an abuse of the popular mind. He may be unconscious of it,—but ‘if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.’
“The whole force of the text on which he comments, as uttered by the Lord, is concentrated in the words εἰς τὸ ἐμὸν ὄνομα. He does not in any sense point his disciples to the gathering by the Holy Ghost, but only to their recognition of the value—the authority—the prevalency with the Father—of His own most precious name.”[1]
We cannot say that Mr. Dorman’s language—and for twenty-eight years he was with “the Brethren”—is a whit too forcible. For it is not often that one meets with an argument so untenable and so speciously put; nor outside of the so-called Church of Rome are we accustomed to meet with such pretentious claims.
(2.) The second point in their practice to which we advert is their worship and ministry.—And we shall most satisfactorily deal with this, if we touch upon their component parts. (1.) Every Lord’s-day they break bread—according, as they allege, to apostolic
- ↑ High Church Claims, etc., by W. H. Dorman, Letter iv., pp. 6-7.
