THE POWER OF AN ASSEMBLY TO BIND AND TO LOOSE. (Matt. 18:15-20.)-Continued.

3. THE LOCAL ASSEMBLY.

We need now to consider more closely the assembly itself. It is the only place in Matthew,-and in the gospels-in which the assembly is spoken of, this passage that we are now considering, except where, two chapters before, the Lord announces to Peter that upon that Rock which he had confessed He would build His Church. The reference is evident to that very passage ; for it is there that the power to bind and to loose is committed to Peter which here is committed to the assembly:not, however, to the whole Church, of which He there speaks, but to the local church (or assembly). The reason should be plain :the local assembly is the only practical means by which the Church as a whole can express itself. The Church at large is the whole membership of Christ all over the world. Such a body would be of course impracticable to bring together upon any occasion and unite in a common judgment. The assembly at any one spot is thus empowered by the Lord to act for Him, even though they be but two or three, the lowest possible number of which an assembly could be formed.

It is, moreover, as actually come together that they have authority:this is expressly stated both here and in the epistle to the Corinthians (i Cor. 5:4). Only thus could it be said, "There am I in the midst of them." Those actually gathered together, and no others, have power to bind and to loose.

This is of importance in connection with what some have maintained-that all gatherings in a city or town are but one assembly, and that for any one of these gatherings to act for itself apart from the rest is simple independence. It may not seem needful to mention it here, but as a principle that has proved itself fruitful of evil, it deserves to be considered still. Many yet hold it, who know not what it is they hold,-have not examined its consequences in the light of Scripture, nor even been aroused by what one might suppose abundant experience.

The plea for it is that Scripture speaks only of " the assembly" in a city, of "assemblies" in a district like Galatia. It has been answered that the now-accepted reading of Acts 9:31 speaks of "the assembly throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria," while in many cities no doubt there was but one assembly. Even in Corinth, a large city for the times (when cities were by no means what they are to-day), the whole church is spoken of as coming together into one place (i Cor. 14:23); so that the language cannot be pleaded in the very place where it would be of most importance to the argument, in the epistle namely in which the order of the church on earth is the special subject. If at Corinth they could all come together into one place, there must have been few cities, one would say, in which they could not.

But the true answer is that there is no doctrine in all this, and that the doctrine which we have in Scripture as to assembly-action is different and contradictory to the thought. The question is simply to what kind of an assembly is the power to bind and to loose intrusted by the Lord; and then the answer must be that it is such an assembly as actually assembles, and no other. This, is evident:it is "where two or three are gathered together in My name," says the Lord, "there am I in the midst of them." If such an assembly pronounces as to any matter within its province, where is the warrant for saying it does not bind ? or that which in a country place would be right and incumbent upon them to do, would be in a city mere independency ?

Scripture has no idea of an assembly composed of assemblies, but ever and only of an assembly composed of individuals. Membership is only in the body of Christ, and the local assembly, according to the idea of it, before schism had rent the Church, as it soon did, was just the " one body " in whatever place,-the practical working representation of the whole body of Christ. But if so,- and the first epistle to the Corinthians makes it undeniable,-there is then no possible place for another kind of assembly, whose units shall be assemblies and not members:the body of Christ gives us quite another thought. This kind of city-church contended for is really the beginning of an ecclesiastical system like to those around us, and far from the simplicity of Scripture. Its influence is morally evil, for we cannot violate Scripture without suffering the consequences of it.

The first effect is, that there must be some unifying third kind of a meeting to enable the whole to work unitedly; and since this cannot be a meeting of the whole, it must be a meeting of representatives, whether self-chosen or chosen by the gatherings. If the latter, a new kind of official is created; if the former, it is worse by so much as they act upon their own account, and without being responsible in any proper way to those they represent.

Other consequences are sure to follow. The representatives come to be the men of leisure, and, as naturally connected with this, the men of means, and not the better is it if they are, along with this, the men of gift; for so all the more readily is a clerical caste established,-the ruin of all divine order in the Church of God.

You have now a parliament, or congress, not an assembly such as the Word contemplates or the Lord authorizes here at all; and yet in their hands is the final decision practically left. And after in perhaps a dozen really competent assemblies-competent, it is owned, in any other place,-the matter has been apparently settled, it is put into their hands for final adjustment.

Thus the Lord is dishonored, for " there am I in the midst of you " is no longer what gives competency to act, and He being slighted, and the Spirit of God grieved, it is no wonder if there should be plenty of conflicting judgments to exercise the presiding board,-for such it is. Worse evils follow. These great city-assemblies come to have, necessarily, preponderating weight in the minds of the Lord's people round about. They become centers of influence, and soon courts of appeal. They attract the ambitious; they become temptations to the spiritual; they learn to feel their power and to exert it:metropolitanism grows apace. Alas ! we are but tracing the first steps of that decline which subjected the Church to the sway of the world, and eventuated in a Roman dictator issuing his decrees from the Vatican.

This will be thought by some mere raving and abuse. Let it be so. A John could wonder with great astonishment, when he saw in prophetic vision the harlot church. Rome was the slow growth of centuries, and the steps that led to it were almost insensible at the beginning. Yet there has been enough before our eyes to warn those who are capable of receiving it. It should be enough indeed for us that Scripture condemns it all, as it surely does, when it puts the authority to bind and to loose into the hands of two or three gathered to Christ's name, and makes the basis of that authority His own presence in the midst of those so gathered.
We may leave this, then, in order to insist more fully upon another thing which has been already in part before us, but which needs the strongest possible enforcement, and at the same time the fullest consideration that can be given it. All these points as to the order of the Church of God will be found to be most deeply affecting her spiritual condition. They are no mere formalities without moral importance. It would be really dishonoring to God to suppose so. This is the difference so pronounced between human regulations merely and the commandments of the Lord. Indeed, the human regulation is worse than this:in the things of God it is positively immoral, because it gives the conscience another master than the Lord; but I speak now of their character apart from this. What
God enjoins is always holy and promoting holiness. Nor can we go aside from it without the most serious loss in this respect. Yet among those most intelligent in divine order, nothing is more common than violations of this where plainest, as if it were really without any spiritual significance.

It is no new thing, however, that those who insist most upon church authority seem to know least of what the church is,-nay, to have the least respect really for it. It needs not to go as far as Rome, or even to high episcopalianism, in proof of this. Those who are clear enough in theory are often found in practice most opposite to it; and "theory" alone it surely can be which so little influences practice. What is the "Church"? It is the membership of the body of Christ:who doubts it? among those at least who are likely to read this. But when I ask, "Are women, then, of that church to which authority has been given, to bind and to loose ? is it necessary to consult them as to church-decisions? how many there are whose practice at least excludes them altogether ! Some even would plead that the apostle's prohibition of their speaking in the assembly would equally exclude them from being consulted as to its acts. But the two things stand upon entirely different footing.

In the first case, God, who has given the woman her long hair for a covering (i Cor. 11:15), has thus indicated that her place was not to be in public. The attractiveness of her modesty is as soon lost by such prominency as the bloom of a delicate fruit by handling. What can be more unfeminine than boldness in a woman ? What more dignifies her than, a retiring spirit? The head is set boldly upon the shoulders:the heart is safe guarded by its circle of ribs. If the man is, as the apostle says, the head of the woman, the woman is no less clearly the heart of the man.

But God has given woman a conscience no less than man, and to ignore her conscience is more to deny the God that gave it than to put her forward in the assembly is to deny what nature teaches by her long hair. For the conscience is just that in us which owns the divine authority. Deny the conscience, you have unseated God from His throne in the soul. If you can suppress it, the glory is gone from manhood, the beauty and grace from womanhood. Nay, humanity is lost, and a Nebuchadnezzar must be driven to the beasts (to which he belongs) until he knows that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men. Only when he owns that does his kingdom return to him.

The question of discipline is the question of good and evil,-of our association with what is for God or with what dishonors Him ; it is but our taking part in that strife from which no one, even from childhood, can withdraw himself. Force any one to walk hand-in-hand with what he believes in his soul dishonors God, and you have corrupted him, cast him out from fellowship with God, shadowed and perverted his life, and set him upon a road which, wind as it will, goes ever downward. Does it matter whether the pronoun be masculine or feminine- whether you say "him" or "her"? No one the least worthy of respect can think so.
Even a conscience not forced at all, but left unexercised, is a serious evil. " Herein do I exercise myself," says the apostle, "that I may have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men." A want of exercise means a soul indifferent-careless if it be with God or not. People may be drilled, no doubt, into a belief that they are irresponsible-that the responsibility lies elsewhere ; but this will not alter the nature of things, nor prevent the results which necessarily follow. Your belief about it will not make tares wheat, or thorns grow figs. The leak in your boat will scuttle it, though you may sleep easy because the responsibility is in other hands. God's truth turned to a lie is not a lie; and man's lie, though heartily believed in, will not act the part of truth. When God speaks, whosoever has ears is to hear; and if he has none, it is no less God that has spoken.

Now the "church" is not the men of the assembly merely; nor is it the leaders, or the gifted ones, or the intelligent:it is the church. And a judgment given must be, not the judgment of the few or of the majority, but of all. So, if it is truly their judgment, it must be their intelligent judgment, or it is not a judgment at all. They must know the case, know the scripture that applies to it, have full opportunity, without hurry, and waiting upon God. Here is the real duty of leaders, to see that there is no driving, no undue pressure brought to bear, no concealment, and no warping of facts or of the mind:and how helpful will leaders be who can do such work as this ! But in the moment of decision there must be no leaders, but all clear, each one for himself and before God, as if all depended upon himself and there were not another.

True, a judgment arrived at in this way will be a much slower matter than we often desire. Little do we realize what a safeguard God has provided for us by means of the very slowness and dullness of which we complain. God would have us walk in none other than a very plain path-a path which can be made plain to the dullest. To have to make it so plain means to have to rehearse it to ourselves, to look at it from many a side, to have opportunity to detect perhaps what in our haste we had overlooked before. The difficulties in the way are to force us to wait on God for a solution. Ah, God is wise, be sure, in thus linking us together as He has done, and not alone is help given by the wiser to the duller, but by the duller to the wiser also, that we may prove, not how necessary are the wise merely, but how necessary we all are to one another !

And if there are slow ones to be quickened, dull ones to be cleared, souls to be helped in various ways, think you God does not care for all this,-does not look to see it done, does not bless us in the doing it as well as those to whom it is done? See how He thinks of and provides for general blessing by that which seems to our haste only evil to be got rid of. Patience is one of God's own attributes, as it is the sign of an apostle also. And if patience has her perfect work, we shall be perfect and entire, wanting nothing (Jas. 1:4). No wonder that the world should be a place of tribulation, when "tribulation worketh patience " (Rom. 5:3).

It may be said that this is an ideal assembly-action, and that we cannot expect it to be often attained. Alas ! I believe it true that it has been very seldom so. The decision of an assembly counts as that, although half the assembly have never been consulted even,-though the whole matter was settled by a few in a brothers' meeting, and only the result has been communicated to the assembly for their adoption blindly; though the protest of conscience has been unheeded, and indifference and confidence in leaders have made it in fact the judgment of a very few. But in all this, what we sow we reap, and have reaped. God is not mocked; and under His government, the results of such courses have been manifest. Let us not talk of precedents, but honestly and faithfully, by the light of God's holy Word, consider our ways. Not the united voice of all the assemblies in the world can make evil good, or hinder the work of evil being ever evil.

We disclaim rightly association with evil. Have we been as careful about it in this form as we have been in some other forms? I am sure we have not. And thus on the one hand laxity has prevailed where there was indifference, and narrowness and party-action have had their opportunity upon the other, God has ordained help for us in a quarter from whence we never should have thought of it-help from the very ones who need help. The simple and ignorant, the weak and prejudiced, the "babes" of the assembly,-let us realize that these all are to have their intelligent part in assembly-action; and what a guarantee have we got against hasty and party treatment of what is submitted for it; while the result comes out that we must seek help from God to raise the general tone and condition of the assembly, if we would avoid disaster in the time of testing. How wholesome is this necessity! What a binding together of hearts would be the result of the acceptance of it! How would the meaning of church order-and of the church itself-become apparent to us ! Haste is self-will:even though it take the form of zeal for holiness, and care for the honor of the Lord. These, if real, will manifest themselves in care for the least of Christ's purchased flock, and in the endeavor that the separation from evil involve not a worse evil. What need have we of understanding better Christ's headship of His Church, and the omnipotence which we grasp when in helplessness we wait upon Him! And what need to remember that the Church, if one, is yet composed of many members, every one of whom is as distinctly the object of His care and love as if there were no other. His own tender and solemn words, do they not rebuke us all ?-" See that ye offend not (cause not to stumble) one of these little ones."