the faithfulness of the assembly. No doubt exclusion from the assembly of God is a very serious thing, and leaves us exposed to sorrow and just trouble of heart, and that from the enemy: but direct delivering to Satan is the act of positive power. It was done in Job's case for his good. It was done by Paul in 1 Cor. v., though acting in the gathered assembly, for the destruction of the flesh. And again, without reference to the assembly, in 1 Tim. i., as to Hymenæus and Alexander, that they might learn not to blaspheme. All discipline is for the correction of the individual, though to maintain withal the holiness of the house of God, and clear the consciences of the saints themselves.

We must not confound what the Church binds, being bound in heaven, with the Church being able to bind and loose all that heaven can. What the Church, (that is, two or three gathered in Christ's name), binds in the sphere committed to them according to the word, that is sanctioned by heaven. But the Church has nothing to do with forgiving sins, in the sense of not imputing guilt, or making a person righteous; that heaven (that is God Himself) has done as regards the believer; and the Church can neither bind nor loose it. It has no power or jurisdiction in this sense at all. It has a sphere of discipline in which it forgives or judges, and its righteous acts in that sphere are sanctioned on high. And it is important to remark, that the binding and loosing is, in Matt. xvi., conferred on Simon Barjonas in the administration of the kingdom of heaven. He has nothing to do with the Church there. That Christ builds. When the Church forgives, it is an assembly, it

may

be of two or three gathered together in Christ's name. The apostles could administer forgiveness, and did, in receiving into the Church of God, persons called in by grace (John xx.). Paul acts in the same power, and owns it in the assembly then in respect of discipline; the distinction of which, from not imputing guilt, I have already noticed. Simon Barjonas binding and loosing had nothing to do with the Church. Two or three gathered in the Lord's name do it in Church matters. It has nothing to do with any supposed authority of the Church as a whole.

394

No. XXVIII.

DOCTRINAL EVIL.

hast not denied my name (Rev. iii. 8).

THE following extract is from the letter of a brother in the Lord: we have but one Lord, and I trust we shall love one the other (according to the one faith and one baptism), even as He has loved us. Our Lord's love has not hindered the brother from condemning (contemptuously enough, as it seems to me) what he mistakes for error in myself and others, and he will not, I trust, love me the less for presenting in love the effects upon my mind of his remarks. For, so far as our love is as Christ loved us, it is love in the truth. These are His words:

"I fail to find in the word any authority for dealing with doctrinal evil. Moral evil we have direct Scripture for judging."*

The thoughts which rose in my mind after reading this

were

* If this had been the simple confession of individual ignorance I should have answered it in another way than I now do: "1fail to find" might be the expression of humility; that it is not so in this case, may be seen, 1st, by the text that follows: "The dogmas of the brethren in the question of judging doctrinal evil, I cannot accept as they lack the direct authority of Scripture and therefore present nothing to faith. In the last time we want God's thoughts and not man's-more of the Spirit of Christ and less of that of Diotrephes"; 2ndly, by the writer having left Brethren and associated himself with those whose company covert to false doctrine. To be neutral where that as to which we would be neutral is, on the one hand, "the truth of the person of Christ with a whole hearted devotedness," and on the other, "the supposed duty of receiving, all who come in His name, without caring whether they bring His doctrine or not," is very like being neutral between Christ and Satan,-between the Spirit of God and the spirit of error,-between zeal and lukewarmness.

is a

1. How strange that a good man should not, on committing such a sentence to a letter, be struck with the fact that in so saying he condemns all of that which is called the Reformation (that is, all Protestantism in its setting up), and the whole of Nonconformity too;-for Luther and Calvin, etc., left Romanism on account of doctrinal evil. And has not the writer himself left the socalled Church of England, and other things too, upon the same ground of judging doctrinal evil?

2. Then came this text to my mind: "If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do?" (Ps. xi. 3).

3. Then came another thought: "It is the discovery that the, so-called, Church of England cannot put out from itself the infidel teaching of Colenso, cannot deal with the writers of the Essays, with the writer of Ecce Homo,' with the Ritualist teachers, which is now driving 80 many godly people in England out of the Establishment, as out of a city betrayed into the hand of the adversary. Would you say they are wrong?

4. Then I read the sentence again: "I fail to find in the word any authority for dealing with doctrinal evil,” and I said to myself (as if speaking to the writer): "But must not this be only blindness in yourself? Might another God than Jehovah be preached to Israel, and Israel be passive under it? Ought you not to be sure that there must be, though you cannot see it, some sanction of a shelter from doctrinal error about God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost? Doctrinal error about the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, whereby alone you can be saved? Doth not nature teach you that there must be that which you cannot find?"

5. But who can divide between doctrinal evil and moral evil, without bringing down the moral good and evil with which he occupies himself, to the mere level of human morality; so leaving out God's ways and thoughts, and so denying that we are to have the same mind which was in Christ Jesus.

I write this foolishly, as a man, just giving the thoughts as they arose in my own mind after reading the extract. Then I turned to "God and the word of His grace": and I read such words as these:

Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. i. 8, 9). Did Christ give these words by His Spirit, through Paul, to the Churches? And can I say that "I fail to find in the word any authority for dealing with doctrinal evil." A heretic preaches another gospel; I try to deliver him from his error but do not succeed. Try every means in my reach-uselessly. Believe that the man is one of those that the verse refers to—that he is accursed-and can I say "I fail to find in the word any authority for dealing with doctrinal evil.”

Again there is some one among my associates who teaches (would that it were less common) not openly, but really, that love in the disciple to the Lord is not needful. I find he does not himself love the Lord. Am I to say "I fail to find in the word any authority for dealing with doctrinal evil” while this text stares me in the face. "If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha" (a curse for eternity) (1 Cor. xvi. 22).

Again, it is written, "the house of God, which is the church of the living God,the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15). What the house and assembly of the living God is to be is the pillar and stay of the truth. Babylon in the Revelation, the city and mother of Harlots, was Satan's strong hold and had nothing save corrupted truth, truth turned to wrong purposes; but of her it is written, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (chap. xviii. 4). Surely my brother must admit that his statement is, to say the least, too loose. The character of the house and assembly of the living God is, that it is the pillar and stay of the truth. Doctrinal evil comes in,-will he say that the character of the house and assembly contain no authority for dealing in any wise with the doctrinal evil?

To an intelligent mind 1 Cor. v. 5, 1 Tim. i. 20, Tit. iii. 10, would contain authority; but I pass on to texts

more immediately limited to doctrine. In the addresses to the seven churches, we have words fully bearing upon the question of doctrinal evil.

66

“I know.... how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars" (chap. ii. 2). I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan" (ver. 9, and comp. iii. 19). "I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate" (ver. 15).

To have among us those that hold false doctrine and those that preach false doctrine is in either case as strongly rebukeable as to have those that do the evil things which result from false doctrine. And the allowing any such among us is here rebuked of the Lord.

"I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication: and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts; and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; 1 will put upon you none other burden" (ii. 20-24).

[This is according to 1 Cor. xi. 17-34, where we are taught that we are as individuals bound to judge ourselves; if we do not, then the Lord surely will judge us, UNLESS the assembly does its duty and steps in to clear herself from the evil in us in her midst whatever it may be.]