God. If there be one thing more remarkable than another in the history of the Apostle Paul, it is the place he occupied towards the churches he planted. He never intrudes between them and their Lord, either in what concerns their individual consciences as saints, or their collective conscience as a church; but associating himself with them, it may be, in a matter of discipline, he says, “When ye are met together with my spirit, deliver such an one to Satan.” Their consciences were not acted on before their judgment had been quickened; they were not forced to accept an apostolic decree that was above their consciences and their discernment, but both were brought by the grace of Christ in the Apostle into healthful happy exercise, and the Church acting with the Apostle, put away that wicked person, who was thenceforth outside the Church in Corinth, and lawfully outside only, because he had fallen into the place of the ungodly, who are outside the gate of the city, for without that city are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie,” and therefore ought to be outside every other assembly; not because man had placed him outside, but because the Holy Ghost had placed him there, and he was therefore outside the Church of God on earth. Such were outside the Church in heaven, and therefore the saints in Corinth acting on that, put from themselves him who occupied that footing; for we are to judge of all by their fruits, leaving the secrets of the hearts to Him who alone can judge them. For discipline, be it ever remembered, must be an act of obedience to Christ, and not the assumption and exercise of authority on the part of the Church. We must bear in mind that our Lord has said, “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them , and they that are great exercise authority upon them ; but it shall not be so among you.” No legislative power has been committed unto the Church; no place of authority whatsoever has been given unto her; her place is the place of subjection, and her discipline must be only an act of simple obedience, and all other becomes Gentile lordship and fleshly authority.
We would remind those concerned in these London proceedings of which we have been writing, that Mr. Wigram and many others left fellowship with Ebrington Street in 1845, although those in fellowship were confessedly Christians, only because “a new ecclesiastical system had been introduced,” and we would ask those who commit themselves to these acts in London, whether or not a new ecclesiastical system and nomenclature has not been introduced among themselves, “opposed to what had been recognized from the beginning.” We are aware that many among them-
