Dear Brother:

I have read "The Gates of Jerusalem," by Mr. E. I think the fundamental error of the tract is the expression quoted from another:"The idea creates the organization, the organization destroys the idea." I think also that probably the author of the expression used it in a sense quite different from that given to it in this tract. The truth is, that, failing to realize the unity of the Spirit, organization has been resorted to as a means of securing unity, the result being an outward unity-a human form of unity-not the unity of the Spirit. No human organization is needful to maintain the truth that all saints possess a common life. And to make that fact the principle of practical communion is unholy. To refuse practical fellowship to a brother who in practice is attaching an unholy character to the common life is a holy necessity, if practical fellowship is to be maintained consistently with the character of the fact of a common life. Exclusion from, practical fellowship of those who falsify the character of a common life is not a denial of the possession of a common life.

The reasoning of the tract on the difference between Paul and John is simply giving up "the form of sound words " as given by the Spirit through Paul. Is it true that there are to be no Timothy’s now to hold and maintain Paul's teaching and practice ? The point in Mr. Darby's advice, "Let not John's writings be forgotten while insisting on Paul's," is missed altogether. He did not advise to give up Paul for a misunderstood John. Mr. Darby's thought was that occupation with "the display" (Paul), unbalanced by occupation with "the thing displayed" (John), tended to pride and self-importance. It is one thing to glory in what we are through grace, quite another to glory in God Himself. It is one thing to have ourselves and our wonderful blessing before us, quite another to be unconscious of ourselves in the sense of what God is. C. Crain