Fragment on Discipline

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 9
It is well to remember here that Christian discipline has always the recovery of the soul for its object. Even if the Offender should be delivered unto Satan, it is for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord—a most forcible reason for exercising this discipline, according to the measure of our spiritual power; for we cannot go beyond that. At the least we might always humble ourselves before God, in order that the evil may be removed. To be indifferent to the presence of evil in the church is to be guilty of high treason against God; it is taking advantage of His love to deny His holiness, despising and dishonoring Him before all. God acts in love in the church; but He acts with holiness and for the maintenance of holiness: otherwise it would not be the love of God which acted; it would not be seeking the prosperity of souls.