p92 Dear F Cavenagh, - It is far better that - should give up the position he is in. Let the brethren pay for their room … and use it as they like, beyond meeting in it. If they pay for the room they have a right to dispose of it: that has nothing to do with my ministry. Their getting some one to be active in getting a lecturer, is merely their confidence in the individual. If there was not liberty when the assembly meets as an assembly that is another matter. - only proves by his tract that he knows nothing about what has passed at Plymouth. There was no such question there ever raised in any way. But as to the principles there I am decided. If Christ has thought proper to give me a gift, I am to trade with my talent as His servant, and the assembly has nothing to do with it: I am not their servant at all. If they wish me to teach them I will teach, but I do not go as into an assembly, but to teach those who are disposed to hear. I exercise my individual gift, the assembly has nothing to do with me. I refuse peremptorily to be its servant. If I do or say anything as an individual, calling for discipline, that is another matter; but in trading with my talent, I act neither in nor for an assembly, rejoiced to do it in fellowship with them. If -'s doctrine was right, an evangelist could never exercise his gift at all, for he cannot really in an assembly as such. A teacher is just as much a servant of Christ as the evangelist, and bound to wait on his teaching. I believe it an effort of the enemy to deny ministry as service to the Lord.

In an assembly I may teach, but I do not go as a teacher: I may not open my mouth, or merely pray, I am merely one of the assembly. When I go to teach, I go individually to exercise my gift, and not into an assembly at all; and if this be denied, the authority of Christ and the liberty of the Spirit [are denied] to substitute for them the authority of the assembly. Difficulty was made here at one of the meetings, and I am going this day to lecture, the assembly having rejected the idea; and the brother who had the difficulty was silenced by their asking him did he not go and hold meetings in the country - which he did. Why should you object, they said, here? The Lordship of Christ is denied by those who hold these ideas; they want to make the assembly or themselves lords. If I am Christ's servant, let me serve Him in the liberty of the Spirit. They want to make the servants of Christ the servants of the assembly, and deny individual service as responsible to Christ. I do not go into the assembly when I go to teach or to evangelise, nor am I aware that Lord of the assembly is a scriptural idea at all; if it be it can be shewn me, I do not recollect it; but my liberty in the Spirit and my responsibility to Christ I will not surrender to any one, or any assembly. But you have complicated it with the room. It is far better - should give up the control of the room if the assembly pays for it. If the assembly as such wish for a teacher to lecture, - has no right to hinder them; who is he to control the whole assembly in it? But let the assembly do it, if the assembly pay for the room.

There is full liberty. Paul takes Timothy; Apollos will not go where Paul wishes, and Barnabas gets Paul to come; and if they were teaching and preaching, why should not those gifted now? And if Paul and Barnabas were guided of the Spirit, why may not, in their measure, teachers be guided now? Who sent Titus to Crete, or left Timothy in Ephesus? They will say it was apostolic authority. Be it so; but do not let them pretend it is contrary to the liberty of the Spirit in those who serve. Paul went into the synagogue as his manner was; it was an arrangement. He separated the disciples, and discoursed daily in the school of one Tyrannus. This was arranged, and a lecture. Did this destroy the liberty of the Spirit? I am perfectly clear that all this is an attempt of the enemy to destroy the liberty of the Spirit, and the authority of Christ over His servants, and introduce another authority into the church of God. But do not mix this question up with a right over the room. If the assembly in fact pay for it, the room is in fact given up to them, let them dispose of it, and - retire. If he lends the room to them on the old ground let him do so, and pay for it, or rent it to them, and they have nothing to say to it at any other time. But do not mix up the money title to a room with the title of Christ to dispose of His servants as He pleases. … Leave the room to the assembly who pay for it, and let the assembly have lectures or not as they wish in their room. I am free to act without consulting them in my service to Christ: they are not the masters of the Lord's servants.

November, 1870

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