It is plainly stated by Jesus that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. In plain language this means that the church which he planted can never lose its identity. The truth is that our brethren have confused the party to which they are attached with the church of God. They are frightened by the thought that all of God's children may become one, and thus put an end to their party as well as all other factions. Since they look upon their faction as the church that would be equivalent to the church losing its identity.
Men build walls about themselves and feel secure within their narrow confines.
They lose their love for freedom. With their wings kept closely cropped by tradition and penned up inside their interpretative fences they are no longer adapted to the glorious liberty of the sons of God. They surrender love of truth for dogmatism and barter hope of grace for legalism. Removed from the main channel of religious thought where the current flows freely they drift into bayous and sloughs where they mistake stagnation for faithfulness and placidity for loyalty. In time they come to believe that the marsh is the stream and that to dry it up would be to destroy the river.