Page:Darby - A narratives of the facts.djvu/73

 I would repeat here that in the teaching I heard from Mr. Newton, one object was evident as the object, and that was teaching something contrary to the other brethren, so as to set them aside with those over whom he had influence, or who gradually took in this teaching. Nor was I the only one that remarked this. But as to the unity being in heaven. I had asked, was the doctrine that the Gentile Churches together constituted the one Church, St. Paul’s statement of the unity of the Church. Mr. N. answers p. 56, of his second letter “I should think not because St. Paul speaks of the invisible unity of the Church in heaven” can any thing be plainer than such an answer where the charge was made, and an explanation given? St. Paul’s teaching, St. Paul’s statement is of the unity of the Church in heaven. Mr. N. had “been speaking of the visible unity of the Churches on earth.” But “this visible unity of Churches constitutes the one Church of the living of God” “The Churches (p. 60) were members of one body.” “The Catholic unity of the body would have been marred and lost the moment one Church had forfeited its place and had its candlestick removed.”

Now what is the good of five persons coming and saying: we have not dropped the unity of the Church into Churches, when one of them has printed it as plainly as words can be, save in the sense which is concealed in these numbered paragraphs, in the sense that the unity of the Church, means its unity in heaven, “invisible unity in heaven.” And I ask here if St. Paul’s statements refer, as Mr. N. has printed and published, to invisible unity in heaven, which are the passages in Scripture which refer to the unity of the Church in this dispensation on earth? It is totally untrue that St. Paul’s statements refer only or properly to that, though of course that remains true, for he is speaking of joints of supply in the one body on earth. Which is right, or the truth, p. 4 of the letter of these five, or p. 56 of Mr. Newton’s letter? Or I repeat what is the meaning of five persons coming and saying we do not hold what one of them has printed and