"Early Nee" vs. "Later Nee"

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Ohio

KisstheSon. Yes, I have read that book. There is a superb 14-15th cent commentary on "recovery." Have you read that? If not, I'll find it and maybe post it.

TPC, p.146, quotes Cheltschizki who wrote in 1440:

"Nothing else is sought in this book but that we, who come last, desire to see the first things and wish to return to them insofar as God enables us. We are like people who have come to a house that has been burnt down and try to find the original foundations. This is the more difficult in that the ruins are grown over with all sorts of growths, and many think that these growths are the foundation, and say, 'This is the foundation' and 'This is the way in which all must go,' and others repeat it after them. So that in the novelties that have grown up they think to have found the foundation, whereas they have found something quite different from, and contrary to, the true foundation.

This makes the search more difficult, for if all said, 'the foundation has been lost among the ruins,' then many would begin to dig and search for it and really to begin a true work of building upon it, as Nehemiah and Zerubbabel did after the destruction of the temple. It is much more difficult now to restore the spiritual ruins, so long fallen down, and get back to the former state, for which no other foundation can be laid than Jesus Christ, from whom the many have wandered away and turned to other gods and made foundations of them ...

In the apostles' times the churches of believers were named according to the towns, villages, and districts, they were churches and assemblies of believers, of one faith. These churches were separated by the apostles from the unbelievers. I do not pretend that the believers could, in a material, local sense, all be separated into a particular street of the town, rather, they were united in an association of faith and came together in local gatherings where they had fellowship with each other in spiritual things and in the Word of God. And in accordance with such association in faith and in spiritual things they were called churches of believers."