p399 Dear Miss Coke, - Mr.-'s objection is the common one of loose brethren, but the question is elsewhere than where he has put it. What does scripture say about it? Whether men carry out successfully is a grave question for their consciences, but has nothing to do with what is right. I asked myself this question years and years ago, How if all this should fail? Well, I said it would prove I was a bad workman as far as I was concerned in it: but there it is in scripture just where it was, and that is what is to govern us. 1 Corinthians 12 clearly states this unity of the body on earth. Besides the whole teaching of scripture. But the answer as to circumstances is clear. The ground is not the wisdom of a set of individuals, but the promise that where they are gathered to His name He will be in the midst of them. And I have always found that respecting the action of an assembly prima facie is the way of wisdom and what God owns. And Mr.- forgets that the fact, that we are all one body, gives the title to communicate and remonstrate if called for, and in an extreme case, where evil is deliberately allowed, to disown the meeting altogether. The loose brethren have given up the truth of the unity of the body on earth and have gone back into the camp, and are mostly Independents without a regular minister, or merged in a general looseness that has spread everywhere. But this has not changed the word of God.

Yours sincerely in Him.

Leeds, July 27th, 1877.

[52266E]