Now as to three several presentations of man's union which we proposed to notice. Take (first) Babel. There was union compact and comprehensive -man's great confederacy for his own aggrandizement, consolidation and glory. God called this, confusion, man united with man apart from God; it was manward not Godward. This was disorder. It was the beginning of Babylon; it was the germ of ecclesiastical organization. It was political also. The ecclesiastical Babylon was in principle there, and its name (Babylon) is God's name for the corrupt ecclesiastical systems of these days. Hence Babylon and Israel are seen as always antagonistic to the very end.
Disobedience characterized this Babel confederacy, for the command to replenish the earth called for dispersion over it; but men congregated-"lest we be scattered." Man thus acted according to his own views upon his own ground and for his own purposes, with entire exclusion of God's mind from his thoughts.
So men now arrange or array themselves into systems and organizations in disregard of God's ordering to Himself as center upon the ground of the unity which He has established; for God, as we have seen, has His own distinctly ordered ecclesiastical establishment. Just so far as man moves manward, so far he moves from God's center, which independence of God is just the principle of ecclesiastical evil. It is will- fullness, and when man congregates on the wrong principle-to himself merely, God-as at Babel-scatters. This will have illustration as we go on.
We may take (second), the more distinctly ecclesiastical Babylon—viewing the church of Rome in its claim to unity as seen in its external history from the first till now, and its history in the world from first to last; notably as to the former in its recently developed attempt to secure the reunion of christendom by means of its "association for the promotion of the unity of christendom"-taking this as an exemplification of its character-seeking by agencies working. within each to accomplish a corporate union of the Greek and Anglican churches with itself. This, if secured, would of course be followed by a forced conformity of all orders within the unity which Rome would then present, as the mother and mistress of all churches in restoration as she would claim of the visible unity of christendom. But this would still be confederacy. It would be manward not Godward. For though Rome sees the fact of God's unity in His word, she knows nothing either of its principle or of its power. Her establishment would be a totally different, thing from God's establishment. It would be confusion; and, if successful she would have consummated a union out of which all who are the Lord's would need to come to the place of His unity as truly as they who sought the Lord had to go out of the camp of Israel when it was utterly defiled (Ex. 33;7), and upon the principle of the call of the day, " Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord" (2 Cor. 6:1717Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, (2 Corinthians 6:17)).
The movement under Dollinger embracing ecclesiastics of the Greek and Anglican churches as well as that of Rome, though the movement of better and truer men, is really the same principle, and to be classed as ecclesiasticism of the same character. It is all mere confederacy, beginning and ending with man. Union it may be, but unity on God's ground it is not. Confusion is its name still, and all that is of this Babylon of the Revelation-the mystery, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. Mother and offspring together are to be destroyed with the terrible destruction of Rev. 17;18.
Within this, sad and painful is it to say, will be found much of the so called evangelicalism of this day, based upon Romish theology, of the true old Babylon character of mixture and confusion, out of which God's children astray there, or asleep there, are called to come, and, in His grace will sooner or later be brought out before His terrible judgment be executed thereupon. Blessed it is to be now brought out of the confusion of this political and ecclesiastical system, not only of its grosser forms, but also of its more specious and subtle forms.
Take now (third) the Evangelical Alliance. Not any unkind word about this would be uttered, nor about the dear children of God who take part therein. But in principle it is the old character or thing-confederacy off God's ground and in. God's sense according to His word, of the Babylon character of confusion. Its basis is agreement in certain doctrines which are held to express evangelical truth. It assembles periodically upon one platform, Christians of all churches and denominations, claiming no compromise of particular views, but claiming, nevertheless, orthodox union and claiming to exhibit the unity of God's people on the highest and best possible ground. Their coming together to the Lord's table, recognizes the oneness of the body of Christ, but does not recognize the unity of the Spirit, nor the special presence and rule of the Holy Ghost in the assembly, corporately, of God's people.
They meet rather as individual Christians coming out, for the once, from their ecclesiastical enclosures and tables, to manifest an essential union which they are happy to acknowledge, and to foster a love to the brethren, which they own to be a characteristic of those who are Christ's; but those divisional and distinct enclosures and tables, they not only tolerate, but sanction and applaud, and straightway return to them to be as they were. But the very principle of the Corinthian sectaries is paramount (1 Cor. 3;4).
One says, I am Lutheran-I am Wesleyan-I of the church of England-I of the church of Scotland. Moreover while at Corinth there was yet only the, spirit of division-no breaking off and going out into separated assemblies; here is now the out and out separation, the distinct churches formed, established, recognized and proclaimed as distinct, the bounds and fences high up and erect.
But if, for tendency to this, Corinth was condemned, what of these? If they Of Corinth in this thing were carnal, what of these? Disobedience, flagrant and distinct! Does such manifestation of love, one to the other as brethren, palliate disobedience of God's plain word? Doing the very thing they are forbidden to do! Can any considerations of expediency justify this? Very loving brethren, but very naughty children, not seeing that if gathered on the ground of God's unity-Godward first, brethrenward second, reaching brethren from God's 'center, there would flow out from its true source and through its widest channels in fullest measure, embracing all God's children, that love to another which they-these very ones we are writing of-desire to exercise.
Brethren bear with us. You are thus on the ground of mere confederacy. The Babylonian principle is amongst you, very subtle but if looked up, very distinct. A better thing you seek than the forced union Rome would impose, but God's real unity rejected, and allowance and vindication of the sects and churches differing in doctrine, discipline, order and organization-declaratively maintained.
Those platforms testify to two things, love to brethren and disobedience to God! Are not the writings, 1 Cor. 3;3-5 1 Cor. 1;10-13 Rev. 3;15-18, set over against them? Is not all this characteristically the Evangelical Alliance? But it is ecclesiastical expediency-allowance of evil instead of separation from evil-the former, man's principle, the latter, God's separation from evil, being the first principle of true gathering to the name of Jesus and of the recognized presence and fellowship of the Holy Ghost upon His own presented ground for the assembly of His people. And if otherwise, if, God's principle were seen and acknowledged, these sects-full of God's dear children, but off God's provided ground for His children-of which this alliance is composed, would break up to-day, and God's children would find themselves associated on ground which " they were born unto as God's children, if they would only see and own this, on God's ground, round God's center, on God's principle, in God's unity-the church of the living God.
This alliance may indeed be allowed to be the most pronounced attempt at the manifestation of Christian union, and is so put forward, though one considers the Young Men's Christian Association, which is above and beyond theological distinction, and without any recognition of such distinctions, as really upon higher ground. But the alliance as the best exhibition, ecclesiastically, of man's union, affords no true testimony to the oneness of believers which, as that which ought to be manifested, has been practically lost-but willfully gives it up and accepts declared division in its stead, and is confusion worse confounded. And as we have once seen God's unity and man's union somewhat in contrast, we may perhaps afterward consider more distinctively the difference in principle which they present, and the practical responsibility and duty which are thereby imposed.
T. M. T.
(Continued.)