JT on fellowship
"Beloved brethren, human nature is always tending to extremes
and transcending what is written. As the saying is, it will strain at gnats and
swallow camels by the herd. It set up the Inquisition and is incessantly prying
into matters beyond its jurisdiction. It is very fond of playing the judge and
of executing its own decrees. It has a zeal but not according to knowledge, and
therefore its zeal is intemperate and not the zeal of wisdom or knowledge
rightly used. It professes great zeal for the purity of the Church, and would
purge out everything that offends its sensitive imagination. But it is not a
good thing to have a church without tares, black sheep, or spotted heifer? Yea,
verily, it is an excellent thing. But then it is a thing the Holy Spirit has
never yet developed, and cannot be developed by any human judiciary in the
administration of spiritual affairs. There are certain things that must be left
to the Lord's own adjudication when he comes..." (John Thomas).
"Wherever there is intolerance, wherever we find conditions of
communion among Christians imposed, which Christ hath not clearly enjoined;
wherever creeds and modes of worship are enforced by human power, and men made
to forfeit any of their civil rights, or are stigmatized on these accounts,
there is the spirit which is not of God. Wherever one Christian, or a number of
Christians, assumes the seat of authority and judgment in the Church of Christ,
wherever they call for fire to destroy those who dissent from them or only
exclude them from their communion and affection, there is a portion of the
spirit of Antichrist, which has so long opposed itself to the benign principles
of the Kingdom of the Prince of Peace, has been the cause of so many evils to
humanity, and the occasion of making the inconsiderate esteem the amiable yet
distinct and uncompromising religion of Jesus, as a source of mischief, instead
of benevolence. "Alas, how much of this spirit remains amongst us all!! How few
have learned that 'In Christ circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is
nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God' " (John Thomas).
