The Reformation did not directly touch the question of the true character of God's church.
From John Nelson Darby
I had always owned them to be the Word of God... the careful reading of the Acts afforded me a practical picture of the early church; which made me feel deeply the contrast with its actual present state; though still, as ever beloved by God.
It is the desire of our hearts, and as we believe God's will under this dispensation, that all the children of God should be gathered together as such, and, consequently, as not of the world.
The presence of the Holy Spirit is the keystone of all our hopes.
This truth of the gathering together of God's children is in Scripture seen realised in various localities, and in each central locality the Christians resident therein composed but one body: Scripture is perfectly clear on that head.
I know that those who esteem these little organised associations to be the churches of God, see nothing but mere meetings of men in every other gathering of God's children.
I held apostolic succession fully, and the channels of grace to be there only.
Obedience to the word in humility of mind never confuses.
But the more we search the Scriptures, the more we perceive, in this doctrine, the fundamental truth of the gospel - that truth which gives to redemption its character, and to all other truths their real power.
Jude has a very different character. It is not the cradle of Christianity, or of the assembly on earth: it is its decay and its death here below. It does not keep its first estate.
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