ask you to note the contrast between their activity towards sinners and saints. We are admitted to be saints; and yet all their resources are to be brought to bear upon us, to bring us into their fold. But we are warned that towards sinners, lost souls, they have no corporate responsibility—that whoever seeks to save them, does it in his individual capacity. I am content to add one word, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
(5). Their government.—This is a most strange puzzle. They meet “in the name of Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost,” and hence they say, “Jesus is sufficient to keep order in His own house.” But they also maintain that all their “gatherings” form together, for example, “the one assembly of God in London.” There were churches in Galatia, as Paul teaches; but since London is not a province, only a town or city, there can only be one assembly in it. Here comes the difficulty. As they meet in different places there cannot be uniform discipline, government. But this difficulty has been met. A Saturday evening meeting has been established, which is attended by “the leaders” of the respective “gatherings,” and this meeting is their practical supreme power. They issue simultaneous notices to the different parts of London―announcing admissions to fellowship, the exercise of discipline, etc. You will not fail to observe that this meeting is a sad confession of the utter insufficiency of their doctrine, and a plain contradiction to all their professions. But it is a necessity, and hence it is yielded to, though not without disapprobation, I am informed, on the part of many of their number, who maintain that the freedom of the assembly is completely overridden by the Saturday evening conclave. The following extract will support this statement:―
“It is, Brethren, at this Conference, assembled in ‘private,’ that the functions of the Church are usurped. Here
