Page:Dennet - The Plymouth Brethren.djvu/21

 .”—P. 35. This argument is either true, or not true. If true, it is exceedingly important; and I am not ashamed to confess that I felt its power when I first read it. Judge, then, my surprise on taking my Greek Testament to examine it for myself, when I found that the very same word is used for the assembling of the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, to take counsel against our Lord (See Matt. xxvi. 3, compared with Matt. xviii. 20.) Must we not then conclude that it is not true? Another question presents itself—if the Brethren do not meet, but are gathered (i.e., by the power of the Spirit) how is it that, like other Christian people, they are always “gathered” together at exactly the same time—eleven o’clock on the Lord’s-day morning? A moment’s candid examination of the question shows that for the assumption there is not the shadow of a shade of foundation in the Word of God, or in the facts of experience and observation. The only matter of astonishment is that any one should have ventured to publish such a statement as that we have just read. The point, however, is of so much importance that I venture to quote what another has written respecting it. He says:—

“One would hardly have conceived that so much moral truth depended on this nice distinction between two phrases near akin, as being ‘gathered together’ and ‘met together,’ as that the one should make a company of Christians (for he is talking about Christians and church position) nothing but ‘a club’ or ‘a society,’ and that the other should constitute them ‘the assembly [Church] of God !’

“As to the criticism, I may say that the verb employed is the commonest in the New Testament for assembling, or being assembled together; and is used in every variety of latitude as to motive, and object, and gathering power. It is alike employed in reference to the Scribes and