JULY, 1895

JULY, 1895

Mr. J. Sandeman-Allen.

In trying to make plain my thought (as to the expression ‘Lord’s table’) I may premise by saying that I do not believe that the truth of it is found outside our fellowship. My fear is in the assumption of it by brethren as giving a kind of ecclesiastical status when morally they may be very little in the reality of what it implies. It is a truth which, in the present state of the church, must be apprehended abstractly, i.e., in, its normal character, as being the proper fellowship for all christians in any given place. It is the fellowship of Christ’s blood and body (His death). In this sense the thing in its true character ^[p. 109] can never be restored, and the attempt to lay claim to it by any body of saints appears to me undesirable. I think the point now is to be morally in the fellowship of Christ’s death. I believe it is of all moment in these days to be in the sense of the ruin of the church, and to get away not only from unrighteousness, but from all pretension, and to get to the Lord, and to follow righteousness, love and peace with all those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. I trust that this describes the fellowship of brethren, and I am sure that the nearer we are to the Lord the more truly we shall be in the fellowship of His death, and thus really partakers of the Lord’s table. To attempt to apply in these days 1 Corinthians 10:16,17 in a literal way would, I think, put brethren in the place of the assembly.