The Original 1883 (First Edition) of
The Ecclesial Guide

28. -- Exclusion of Business from Sunday Meetings.

The great object to be aimed at in first day meetings is comfort and edification in the things of the Spirit. All arrangements ought to converge upon this result. Everything ought to be avoided that at all interferes with it. All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient. It is not expedient to introduce matters of business or topics of debate at assemblies convened for the contemplation of the things of the Spirit. They interfere with the placid contemplation of these things, and, in time, have a tendency even to displace them altogether. Without stringent care on this point, ecclesial meetings are liable to degenerate into social clubs, at which secular matters acquire ascendancy in the minds of members, and the realities of God's glorious will are driven into the distance. It ought to be an absolute rule, that no business discussion should take place at first-day meetings of the ecclesia. Let all business be banished to another time.