My Dear Mr.—-, It seems to me (I think too it is the Lord's mind) that if souls in Brisbane realized that Scripture declares that the assembly is indeed part of the habitation of God, that this alone-would be sufficient, not only to show out the wrongness of the expressing therein of mere human feelings, but to produce humility for anything of the kind that has been.
If I go to the table of the Lord with the two truths in my soul-1st, that my own body is a temple of God (for the Spirit is in me); and, 2nd, that this is my qualification to be in the assembly; then, in that presence of God, any sin I may have been guilty of will keep me lowly and slow to speak on the one hand; and, on the other, make any one who may be there, and be, and may have been, troubled by me, watchful not to show even their feelings while there, whatever they may-if it has been godly trouble in them as to me-be led to do afterward through my brethren there.
Supposing I had deceived any one, or told a lie, ere I went to the table I ought to confess it, lest I become hardened; and having done that to God and my brethren -certainly if I knew that I had been guilty of what God could not do (He " cannot lie ")-it ought to make me soft and practically full of self-judgment. On the other hand, if you, or any one against whom the lie was, showed your human feelings, on my most unadvisedly taking a part, as leading in the morning worship, you wrong the Lord and yourself in so doing, and make too much of me altogether; and, more than that, your misconduct puts my misconduct into the second place, your expression of feeling being an overt action of the flesh-positive in character, while mine was more negative-want of grace.
The whole doctrine of what the Church of God is lost and denied if my stupid hardness and dullness as to what becomes God's presence is allowed, or if the table of the Lord is the place at which my will and feelings may be allowed.
You are master in your own house-and if a party of friends met there, you are responsible that no one guest is allowed to grieve another guest; and if you invite me, and I come to your house, I am bound to behave worthily of you. At the table-God being there, and the eyes of the Lord upon His twos and threes-each one there has to act worthily of God's presence, and each one is responsible for the conduct of all there that it is worthy of the Lord's table. All that are at the table, be it ten or a hundred, are at the Lord's table, and each has the Spirit of God; and if anything disorderly occurs thereat, each bears the blame, unless and until he has called attention at a proper time to it, and the assembly has cleared itself of the sanction of the evil which its silence gives.
It seems to me, the doctrines of what is the assembly (or church), and what is the responsibility of each person in it, are greatly needed in teaching in this hemisphere; and I hope, amid all these soul-grieving disturbances, and amid all our culpable ignorance and great weakness, that the Lord is yet working so as to bring us into more light, and more practical consistency with His mind about the assembly, and the conduct that becomes us, as sons of God, when at the table of our gracious Lord and Savior. For three years or more, after I began to break bread, there were but three of us together-I only name this as showing that I know the difficulties of the twos and threes; then we were nine, and a pause; then about sixteen. The difficulties are greater in a small number, very often, than in a large number, always so if human thoughts and feelings are more at work than faith and the Holy Spirit.
Your brother in Him,
G. V. W.