Let me assure you that, were I ever so sensitive, I am too inured to the hardness a soldier of Christ must endure, if in any measure faithful through grace, to take amiss the little extracts from A. N. Groves' Memoir.
Further, I admit and deplore the tendency of not a few in our midst, “especially novices,” to diverge from the grace and wisdom of Christ-which is to me a more serious thing than the late Mr. Groves' spirit and practice-in relation to other Christians. United testimony against all who differ is to me a principle and practice of stiff and narrow dissent, readily imported and inherent in our nature, but in no way conceivable for such as love the church as such according to Christ in their little measure. It might be their melancholy inconsistency, if they became false to their principles. I am sure that I have in my affections nothing to boast; but I dare not belie the fixed conviction and purpose of my life as a Christian, in dropping Anglicanism, to abjure all party and to cleave only to His name in the present most difficult times of Christendom. I would hear 2 Tim. 2:19-22,19Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 20But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. 21If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. 22Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:19‑22) and every other scripture which contemplates and provides guidance for our actual disorder and complications; and I pray that grace may be with all those that love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptness. The idea or feeling of greater love for such as see with me practically (i.e. Brethren so-called), I do not think ever consciously rises in my breast. I would know nothing, in addition to Christ Himself, but the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and would diligently keep it.
Mr. Groves' seems no bad witness, however, of his mistake as to Brethren; for he was welcome, though first and last he materially differed from them. He never recognized the assembly, the body of Christ, as you know Brethren do, though in no way forcing it on or from a single member of Christ, who is received simply and solely in His name. He never understood the baptism of the Holy Spirit as distinct from the new birth, nor saw that while this is common to all believers from Abel (or Adam) downwards, that is special to God's dealing in sovereign grace since redemption and Christ's going on high. (John 14, 16, Acts 1, 2, 1 Cor. 12 &c.) Mr. Groves used to cite (as you may see in his Memoir) Matt. 13:30,30Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matthew 13:30) in a way which destroys ecclesiastical purity and annuls discipline, just as Papists did against Protestants, but rejected by Chillingworth, &c. before us. So far from being a “chief originator” therefore, he was always especially opposed to those who affirm that, while grace is the power, separation from evil is the necessary and spiritual principle of unity according to God. He was a unit, but never understood unity.
Mr. Groves' was a devoted man, of a practical turn of mind, confused and incapable of analysis, and so he thought that separation from evil, which is another way of expressing holiness, was made by us the power and aim of unity, instead of being (as it must be) its principle, if God had to do with it. Attractive grace in Christ, the one object and center, is the power in the energy of the Spirit. Yet, though differing as to this from us, and finding out that there was a difference which he never discerned truly, either where or how it lay, he went along with Brethren who never thought of troubling him, till he went off himself with his brother-in-law in the unhappy Plymouth-Bethesda rupture.
But, apart from himself, what can be less intelligent than these statements of Mr. Groves? Not life, as he says, nor light, as he erroneously imputed to us, is the bond, but the one Spirit, who has baptized us, whatever we might have been before, into one body. This is not a slight distinction, but fundamental. And therefore, while striving (I trust) as much as Mr. Groves to maintain brotherly love, and fully believing in God's gracious action by His servants in all orthodox denominations, I still humbly but firmly maintain that the very principle of different denominations is dead opposed to the “one body and one Spirit” of scripture; and scripture cannot be broken. The sanction of distinct communions is irreconcilable with God's word. That is the point of Mr. Groves' difference from Brethren, who stand decidedly for the rule the Lord constitutes with which the Spirit's order (though I prefer calling it His action) ought to coincide; which I feel assured is the simple truth on this subject, as revealed in the word, the only safeguard against all delusions.
I do not differ from the late Mr. Groves in abhorrence of narrow-minded arrogance and bigoted assumption, which are altogether at variance with the only becoming ways of the Christian, the lowliness and meekness and long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, in which we are called to walk together, as individually. Nor do I deny the grave occasion we (Brethren I mean) have given by our grievous failures in times of controversial struggle. But this is due, not to a mistaken principle, but to our state of unjudged carnality and to worldly love of party success, and to other humiliating evils inadequately watched against, which have too often tarnished the testimony of Christ in our midst. But Mr. Groves is wholly mistaken if he supposes that his laxity as to Christendom even admits of anything like the same horror of schism, of heresy, or any such sin against Christ and the church, as those brethren must feel who seize the body of Christ according to the written word as he never did.
Surely, my dear brother, we do owe it to Christ to be “exclusive” of all that offends Him, of which His word abides the test; as one's heart would be “open” to all that pleases Him according to the same word. More or other than this I desire not.
To the Rev. —— D.D., &c.