towards the assemblies in London, would they be thereby excluded from the church of God on earth, or do they possess, like the See of Rome, a peculiar commission, and an infallible authority? Well may godly hearts tremble and wonder at the open blasphemy of thus using the name of the Spirit of our God to sanction man’s self-will, or his vindictiveness, his mistakes or his follies. The spirit in Diotrophes once cut off the beloved Apostle from the church, a love of pre-eminence had filled his heart, he placed him outside what he might call the church of God on earth (if such folly and wickedness were probable in those days ), to which the Apostle simply says, “If I come I will remember his deeds.” He does not cast him out because he had been rejected himself, he lived in the church in the grace he sought to exhibit as one called to bear witness to the grace of God, and meets the arrogance and sin of another, with the gentleness and meekness of Christ. The apostolic power of binding and loosing has been often assumed by many professing to belong to the church of God, but never were divine principles of truth more subverted, nor higher light more sinned against, than in the claims under consideration. They are not claims put forward as many claims in Christendom have been, by carnal men, ignorant of God and of His truth; but by those who have made the Word their boast, and Christ their theme; henceforth may all learn to cease from man, whether saint or sinner, and trust again in Him alone. But if the organ of light that is within becomes dark, how great is that darkness, and this is again illustrated and proved by the delusion into which those have fallen who were once able and distinguished servants of God. But if light is made to consist in knowledge rather than in holiness, this will ever be the case; for knowledge, at best, is but in part, and that part driven to an extreme, as it ever will be, unless love hold the helm, and holiness guide the vessel, will end in nothing better than the clang of the sounding brass and the tinkling cymbals, pleasant to the ear of the carnal it may be, but hateful to God, and profitless to the Christian’s great end and aim—God Himself and His glory.
The rule here laid down is virtually this, that every act of discipline is the act of the Holy Ghost. Let it be asked, if there is difference of judgment in any cases under consideration, which way does the Spirit side? The majority are not always in the right, and the strongest have not always most of the Spirit. But what if there has come in that incapacity to judge of which Mr. Darby has cautioned so wisely? What if “an incapacity of conscience to discern right and wrong,” has come in upon the rulers of a Church? for that which can befall an individual can
