According to the divine plan, if I am a member of the church at all, I am a member of the church everywhere. If I go to any quarter of the world where saints call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, I am a member, not by permission nor by courtesy, but by the universal recognition on the part of believers of the title which grace has given me. Baptized by the Spirit, I am a member of Christ's body, wheresoever I may be.
In apostolic days that membership, and none other, was known throughout. There might be differences of view. There might be need of the word, "Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing." Some might eat herbs, and some might eat meat, but the Spirit said, and says, "Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us, to the glory of God."
Now the glory of God is identified, not with some, but with all the members of the body of Christ. If the weakest member, therefore, were excluded, save in case of necessary scriptural discipline, so far would that glory be forgotten or despised, and those guilty of such exclusion ought to be avoided, as causers of divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which we have learned. [41]