Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Before I can accede to your pretensions I must see, not only that the Church was such in the beginning, but, moreover, that it is according to God’s will that it be restored to its primitive glory, now that man’s sin has tarnished and departed from that glory; and, furthermore, that a voluntary union of “two or three” or two or three and twenty, or several such bodies, are each of them entitled, in any locality, to take the name of the Church of God, when that Church originally was an assemblage of all believers in any given locality.

You must, moreover, make it clear to me, if you assume such a place, that you have so succeeded by the gift and power of God in gathering together believers that you can rightfully treat those who refuse to answer to your call as schismatics, self-condemned, and strangers to God’s Church. And let me here dwell on a most important consideration, which they who are bent on making churches have overlooked. They have had their thoughts so fully engaged in their churches that they have almost lost sight of the Church. According to Scripture, the whole sum of the churches here on earth compose the Church, at least the Church on earth; and the Church in any given place was no other than the regular association together of whatever formed part of the entire body of the Church, that is to say, of the complete body of Christ here on earth; and he who was not a member of the Church in the place in which he dwelt, was no member of Christ’s Church at all.

... John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, v. I, London: G. Morrish, 1867-1900?, p. 218-219 (see the book; see also Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2-3; Gal. 1:6-9; more at Beginning, Body of Christ, Church, Earth, God, Scripture)

 
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        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
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Last updated: 05/06/16

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