Whoever hinders the direct authority of the word of God upon the heart is meddling with God's rights. If I send a message to my servant, and someone prevents his getting it properly, it is not merely hindering my servant, but it is meddling with me. We are told to read the fathers, but they were not “from the beginning"; that would be what God said and taught, and then I know from whom I have learned it. To say the fathers were “very early” is more or less true, but that is not the “beginning."
I have God's warning about it, and I must stick to that, or I shall not “abide in the Father and in the Son." Men want you to lean upon failure, for the last times were already come, while the apostles were there to show it. Take the last thing we have about the church of God, and what do you get there? Is it that you are to hear the church? No; it is just the contrary; it is, “hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." How can I hear the Spirit judging the churches, and listen to the churches as my authority and rule? It is all flying in the face of what God has taught us for these last days.