Beloved Brethren:
It is painful indeed to be occupied with the sad division that has taken place, filling so many hearts with sorrow, as meeting after meeting is being rent in twain, to the deep dishonor of that blessed Name to which we have been gathered in happy communion with one another. I for one must say I had well-nigh fainted at the Lord’s rebuke, though I trust I have not despised His chastening. That there is a rebuke from the Lord in all this, surely no right-minded person will deny. Well for us then if we take heed, and are exercised thereby, that we may be made partakers of His holiness. The sorrow is bitter and heart-crushing; nor could it be otherwise to any one who has a heart for the glory of Christ, or values the links formed among the saints through the truth — links now suddenly and hopelessly broken. It has been, and is, a terrible trial; and yet I can say, through mercy, my soul has reaped blessing in the exercises passed through, in being broken from man, and realizing in a greater measure that we have to do with God, the living God. God is allowing everything to be broken up, so to speak, so that we may be thrown upon Himself alone. And if He gets His true place in our souls, the exercise and sorrow will not have been in vain.
But while these links with our brethren are being thus broken, I am sure we need to watch against narrowness of heart, the stream of divine love being dried up within. If God gets His rightful place in our souls this will not be so, for, while “God is light,” “God is love” also; and if Christ is in us, it is the Christ in whose face shines forth all the glory of God’s grace. May we indeed be filled with that Christ, and allow the radiance of that glory to shine forth from Him in us.
And now, beloved brethren, bear with me, if I call your attention to two or three points in the letter of our brother, written in reply to mine. But for the principles involved, I would not notice it. But it seems to me there is a giving up of principles in order to maintain a false position.
He charges me with “perverting judgment in simple souls who allow leaders to think for them,” and so forth. This is a serious charge. I leave it to the Lord and my brethren to judge if it be true. When I see that I have been “perverting judgment,” I trust I shall have grace given me to confess it both to Him and them. I know I am a poor fallible creature, and I would not dare to say my letter was free from error in judgment. I can only say it was my conviction of what was the truth in the case; and I cannot say that my judgment has materially changed since.
I think more has been made of my judgment of the N.H.H. (Natural History Hall) action than is just. I thought then their action was a mistake. I cannot now say it was a mistake, though there may have been mistakes made in connection with it. And if it was a mistake — if they had not the Lord’s mind, then they pressed their own wills. I did not, and do not, charge them with doing this knowingly. I have given them credit for being honest in their convictions and have no reason to doubt it now. Had they persistently forced a judgment which they knew was wrong, I could only say it would have been iniquity, and separation from it would have been the only right course, unless there was repentance.
Our brother says it is “iniquity of the worst kind, because it is the will of man in the things of God.” Well, it is surely very sad if man’s will gets to working in the things of God. But does the dear brother not know that it is a very easy, and a very common, thing for man’s will to get to working in the things of God? Will he say his will never works in these things? I fear very few of us would dare to say we have never been guilty in this respect. Is not his statement rather strong then? And may it not tend to “pervert judgment in simple souls”?
And now as to the repentance of an assembly. Our brother agrees that this should be granted, and asks: “What has hindered the repentance of N.H.H. since last December? What hinders it now?” Does he, then, after all admit that if N.H.H. would repent, those who separated would return again? They charged N.H.H. with willfully setting up a table on new ground; and then it is said they “continued” the Lord’s table in Craig Street. Did this party have charge of the Lord’s table? And did they remove it from N.H.H. to Craig Street? Or how could they leave that table to return to N.H.H., on the repentance of that meeting? Or would they bring it back, and “continue” it in N.H.H.? But is not all this absurd on the face of it? What then? Either the Lord’s table had ceased to exist at N.H.H., and had to be set up again instead of “continued”; or else those who separated left the Lord’s table, and set up another. I believe the latter is true, but even if it were otherwise, where was there any door left open for the repentance of the meeting they separated from? To set up the table at Craig Street was to say, it is gone from N.H.H., and the meeting disowned of the Lord — too late for repentance. Was this course merely haste? I believe it was independency. They judged their own cause, took all into their own hands, and set up the table immediately. Can they wonder that many believe there was a strong party formed in defense of Mr. and his teachings? How different it would have been if they had refused all thought of a confederacy, and individually waited for God to plead their cause! How universal would have been the conviction of the saints that no party was there, and that the accusations were false!
But does not our brother “pervert judgment in simple souls” when he makes a parallel between leaving a merely human sect, and leaving a meeting that has been owned of God as on the ground of His Church? The cases are not equal, and “it would seem some species of blindness” (to use his own words), must have hindered seeing it. I could not speak of a sect as “abandoned” etc., simply because Christ never had His place in it as a system. I left the U. P. Church because I saw the Lord never had owned it, nor the Spirit acted in it as such. Far be it from me to say there were not many godly people in it, owned of the Lord, and wrought in by the Spirit, too. But the system as such has no place in God’s Word, and therefore no claim on my conscience no matter how pure in doctrine or morality. Could our brother say this of an assembly that has been gathered according to the truth? Could he leave such an assembly just as he would leave a sect? The cases surely are not parallel.
Where then is the “perverting of judgment in simple souls”?
But surely it may become necessary to leave an assembly that has been divinely gathered. This I do not doubt for a moment; and Scripture will surely furnish us guidance in the matter. Now I think no one will deny that we are to imitate the Lord’s patience and long-suffering toward a declining assembly. Let us then see what light Scripture furnishes as to the extent of His patience, and when it may be said to cease. A few examples will suffice, and we may begin with Corinth. In that assembly there were parties. “Every one of you saith, I am of Paul,” etc. They were “carnal” and walked “as men.” They had an incestuous man in their midst, and instead of mourning were “puffed up.” When they came together at the Lord’s table, it was not to eat the Lord’s supper but their own, and one was “hungry, and another, drunken.” Chapter 14 would also indicate that they were using gifts to display themselves, instead of to edify one another, and that their women were speaking in the assemblies. Chapter 15 shows that some denied the resurrection. And the second epistle shows that there were “false apostles” among them, ministers of Satan, transforming themselves “as the ministers of righteousness.” All this shows how sad their state was. The Lord was judging and rebuking, bringing in among them weakness, sickness, and death, to wake them up from such a state. But this only showed that He had not given them up as an assembly. The Apostle also was in accord with his Master, writing to them, and seeking to lead them to the judgment of evil, and of themselves as its root.
In 3 John we have a little insight into another case. Diotrephes loved the pre-eminence, swayed the assembly, received not the Apostle who wrote to the assembly, prated against him with malicious words, received not the brethren and strangers who for the Lord’s sake went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles, forbade the brethren to receive them, and cast out of the Church such as would. It is possible the “well-beloved Gaius” had been cast out, and the apostle encouraged him in his good work of receiving and helping forward these brethren. But the assembly was not given up. The apostle expected to go there, and would remember Diotrephes. And if Gaius or others had been cast out unjustly, there was no thought of setting up an independent table, but they would wait for God to plead their cause.
Again, if we look at Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Laodicea, we can easily see how terrible was the decline, and how far evil and corruption had gone before the Lord gave them up. Of course, I speak of these as local assemblies whose state is described in the Word. I do not speak of the prophetical application to the various stages of Church history. We get “the doctrine of Balaam” and “the doctrine of the Nicolaitans” in Pergamos; and in Thyatira, Jezebel is suffered to teach, and to seduce the Lord’s servants, etc. The Lord indeed threatens with unsparing and terrible judgment, unless there was repentance, but He had not yet given them up. Sardis had a name to live while dead — sunk down into the world, though yet having a few names that had not defiled their garments. Laodicea was really worse than all, full of pretension, self-satisfied, while really indifferent to the truth, and heartless as to Christ, lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, a nauseous thing to Christ, who was ready to judge it. But He had not done so yet. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” What wondrous patience! How His heart lingered with the yearning of divine love, over an assembly about to fall under His judgment.
It is not a question of a sect which never had a claim upon the consciences of the saints. It is an assembly which we must admit the Lord has owned as His, at least in times past; and these scriptures show clearly the greatness of the Lord’s patience in such a case — a patience which assuredly we are to imitate. It is easy to ask, “Could you call the table in such a place the Lord’s table?” and add, “If so, you and I have parted company.” One might do that and then go and sit down at a table the Lord never owned at all. Brethren, let us not carry our heads too high, lest the Lord cast us into the ditch to humble us yet more. It is right to abhor evil; the Lord help us to abhor it as He does. But the evil of self-righteous independency is as much to be abhorred as any other. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall; and let us not in fleshly zeal forget the patience of our blessed Master, in the presence of whose holiness we can only say: “I am vile.”
But it is written, “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” “If a man purge himself,” etc. Most blessedly true; and with my whole soul I desire these words to have power over me. But there is no conflict between these scriptures and those we have been examining. The Lord’s long-suffering patience is unquestionable, and this we are to imitate in the fear of God. Are we then to approve the evil we find in an assembly? Surely not. On the contrary, we are individually to set our faces against it — to “reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.” If we suffer in consequence we can look to the Lord for grace to suffer. If we are cast out, we can humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt us in due time. Let us not forget that He is on the scene, and that He “is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
But suppose the assembly as a body has sold itself to iniquity, so that the Lord’s patience is exhausted, and it has “ceased to be owned of Him, abandoned as a lifeless corpse in which the Spirit of God no longer acts,” then there remains no other way but to separate from it, to depart from iniquity.” There is both the purging ourselves from individual vessels to dishonor, and departing from iniquity which has leavened the whole meeting. We are to depart from iniquity whether it be as characterizing the individual, or the assembly. With my whole soul I receive this as God’s truth to be acted on.
But I dare not pass such a judgment as this on N.H.H. If their judgment was faulty, or premature, it is to be regretted, and happy it would be to see some acknowledgment of it, for the sake of the truth, and for the sake of many who have been unable to express their approval of it. But I dare not say the Lord gave up His assembly there, and therefore I cannot own the position of those who went out, judging their own cause, and immediately setting up a table in deliberate rejection of the one at which they had sat the previous Lord’s day. I can see in this action only the spirit of independency — a spirit of evil which, when fully ripened, will bring God’s judgment on both Christendom and the world. Alas! that even now true Christians should be affected by its “blighting influences.” The Lord keep us humble and dependent amid the dangers and sorrows of this trying hour, waiting also for Himself to come and take us out of the scene of conflict, to present us to Himself amid all that wealth of blessing and glory purposed in Him before the world began.
I only add a word for those troubled about going on with the old meeting at Montreal because unable to approve their action. As another has said, “It may yet be found that the brethren there were standing more firmly for the truth than we supposed”; and I am sure it will be well for any who are in doubt, still to wait on God, who can make all clear. “He that believeth shall not make haste.” Have not many erred in hastening assembly action? Is it not better to wait and see what God is doing? Is it needful to press upon assemblies the endorsement of the Montreal action? Is it not better to leave this simply with the Lord, until necessity arises for action? I do not mean by this that we are to hold any neutral position. The Craig Street meeting was clearly the result of separation from the Montreal assembly, and not from that only, but from all gathered on the same ground; and all who have identified themselves with this new meeting have joined in this separation, while all that have taken no action still stand connected with the old ground just as truly as those who have expressed their approval of the Montreal judgment. If something is wrong in the action of an assembly, reconsideration may be sought, and God looked to, to work and to correct, by what instrumentalities He pleases; but this is a different thing from assemblies all over the world sitting in judgment on the action of some assembly, and owning or disowning the assembly, according as they approve or disapprove the action. An assembly, though competent, is not infallible, and may err in judgment, but it does not follow that it is to be rejected in consequence, though one could not express one’s approval of what might be an error. And I beg my brethren not to allow mistakes that may have been made at Montreal to be thrown as dust in their eyes, to pervert their judgment and draw them into independency. This, I believe, the enemy has assiduously sought to do, and alas! has succeeded only too well in many cases. May the Lord enable us to withstand his wiles, having on the whole armor of God.
Your affectionate brother in Christ,
Des Moines, Iowa, June, 1885.