(Concluded from page 223)
6. “And if that Church were designed to be made the model for all Churches, in all countries, and in all ages, the epistle to it ought obviously to have been the very first epistle Paul wrote. But the First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians at least is of earlier date; so is that to the Galatians; and that to the Romans is coeval if not somewhat earlier.” The argument has no force, laying aside the irreverence of dictating to God the order in which He ought to reveal His truth, which lies at the bottom of it. But, in fact, no objection can be more worthless. For there is evident propriety in the Epistles to the Thessalonians taking the priority in time of all others. They develope Christian life in its fresh simplicity and in its capital elements of faith, hope, and love, though correcting specially certain errors into which they fell or were misled in the great article of our hope, and insisting on the moral duties which suit that hope, instead of being incompatible with it, as some vainly supposed. There is no niche which these epistles could so well fill as that in which the Spirit of God was in fact pleased to put them—an initiatory instruction and exhortation to an infant assembly. The date of Galatians is the least ascertainable of all Paul's epistles, some making it first, some last, and many viewing it as intermediate. There is no sufficient reason to postpone it till the apostle's visit to Rome, as the legendary subscription in the common Bible does, followed by not a few names of weight I do not even contend for its being so late as the Epistle to the Romans, which was certainly written at Corinth long before he saw Rome, but after the First Epistle to the Corinthians was written from Ephesus, and even after the second was written somewhere in Macedonia, before his stay of three months in Greece, when and where he wrote to the Romans. But, supposing that the Epistle to the Galatians could be proved to be anterior to 1 Corinthians, contrary to the recent investigation of Prof. Lightfoot, what would be the value of the argument? Who can fail to see that to deliver saints from abandoning grace for the law (which is the point in Galatians) is an individual appeal of the most urgent personal importance, and therefore might well precede the laying down of the divine will as to corporate privileges and responsibilities? But the truth is, that the measure of uncertainty which hangs over the place and time of writing to the Galatians, suits exactly. The point is recovery from a lapse into Judaizing, which might have been either before or after or along with 1 Corinthians. But the Epistle to the Romans was assuredly written in Corinth during the apostle's brief stay in Achaia, after both Epistles to the Corinthians were written and despatched. The Christian Observer therefore is all abroad in the alleged facts: had they been correct, the desired conclusion would not follow.
In a former reply it has been already shown that a model place is not given to the Corinthian assembly more than to any other which the apostle planted or wrote to. We go on the broad ground that the same substantial principles were in force everywhere, that all the assemblies of God recognized the same fundamental truths as to communion, the same exercise of gifts and discipline, the same administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper—all this because the Church is one body, the habitation of God through the Spirit. Scripture is fatal to the present condition of Christendom. Our critic somehow must get rid of the authority that condemns it all. Is not this the aim of the following remarks? “The apostle of the Gentiles seems to have had no idea of conforming the churches, as established in different countries, among people of different habits, to exactly the same type. That would have been Judaism indeed. There is a certain pliancy in Christianity in this respect. The churches planted by the apostles were, so far as we can discover, differently endowed as to gifts, and so they had prescribed for them different rules of action. The Plymouthites admit that the age or miracles has passed away, so far as the supply of apostles and prophets is concerned. By what kind of logic, then, can they contend for its permanence in the supply of evangelists, pastors, and teachers? If the Plymouth Brethren can exhibit the miraculous gifts possessed by the Corinthian Christians, we, for our part, will not object to their acting by the same rules; but to enforce the rules for their exercise, where the gifts do not exist, would be obviously Pharisaic and foolish. The laws of the first creation of the world were exceptional: the laws of its continued existence are fixed and uniform. Is not the same true of the Church?” (Pp. 903, 904.) Now it is no question of detail, nor of the presence of this or that particular gift in this or that particular assembly. The truth is, not that Brethren contend for some one out of the scriptural churches as a model (for we are convinced that they were all essentially alike as to constitution, the Church in fact), but that our adversaries want no model whatever from Scripture. And no wonder.
I utterly deny the ground of the reasoning. Differences in the measure of supply, varying displays of power there were in apostolic days, but there was one divine system which then pervaded the entire Christian profession, founded not only on a common relationship to Christ but on the presence and operations of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. This then is the true question: Does that relationship still subsist for faith to act on? Is that divine Person still present here below to guide those who desire the honor of Christ in obeying God's word? Let others deny not only that it remains but that it ever was true, and thus vainly deny their responsibility and their guilt. May “Brethren” in their weakness have grace to hold fast the word of the Lord and not deny His name It is not true that all the gifts described in 1 Corinthians are gone, because miracles and tongues are no longer. Does the Christian Observer deny that God any longer sets in the Church teachers (1 Cor. 12)? That He still makes His presence felt in His assembly (1 Cor. 14)? There have been Anglican bishops and archbishops who, spite of their system, fully allowed that the prophetic (not predictive) gift is not extinct, and who yearned and contended for the liberty of exercising it; and this on the same ground of 1 Cor. 14 as “Brethren” do. So far is this chapter from being limited to miraculous displays, that the apostle forbids the exercise of a tongue unless sonic one could interpret it for the edification of the assembly. Such was the grand aim of all—common edification, and this in order and decency. But the order is that of the Christian assembly open to the action of the Holy Ghost through its members—an order undoubtedly believed in and acted on by “Brethren.” Will the Christian Observer dare to say it is obsolete? Will they say that no gifts, not even teachers, exist, because tongues, &c., are passed away? “Laws of creation” is mere clap-trap which can only mislead. God created all things by the Son, by whom too all things subsist. He formed the Christian assembly which can never depart from His word that regulates it, save sinfully.
It is true that it was pre-eminently Paul's province to lay down the authoritative regulation of these matters; but God took care to affirm precisely identical principles by the great apostle of the circumcision. So we read in 1 Peter 4:10, 1110As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:10‑11), “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” This unquestionably supposes the most absolute openness for the Spirit's action in the free working of every gift from the Lord. Not even an apostle, still less the elders or bishops, thought of silencing the lesser gifts. There was room for all, great and small. Nor were gifted men merely at liberty to employ what was given them for the good of souls; they were bound to minister to one another, as good stewards of God's various grace. Otherwise God would not be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. Flesh might take advantage of this; but no human restriction can afford a remedy, but on the contrary it aggravates this evil, introduces others, and in itself outrages God's revealed will. The true guard lies in the conscience exercised before Him and subject to His word. Hence the exhortation of James (chap. 3:1), “My brethren, be not many masters [teachers], knowing that we shall receive greater judgment.” The abuse of gift was in no way peculiar to Corinth, but the very abuse, whether in one place or another, demonstrates what was the sanctioned principle of God which required the warning, and this where no sign-gift is spoken of, but only such a gift as abides still for the edification of Christ's body. If indeed the Christian Observer's view is that no such gifts as evangelists, pastors, and teachers, are still given by the Lord, if they are obliged to substitute for them the scanty mathematical or classical lore possessed by the ordinary graduates of a university, and the common-places of divinity required by an examining chaplain, one can understand that much of scripture ceases to apply either in principle or in practice. It is for the believer to judge between us and our adversaries. We hold that every spiritual gift needed to call in souls and build them up is still provided by our living Head; and consequently that the scriptures which treat of this subject are as applicable and binding as in the day they were written. Whose logic is at fault? Whose principles make scripture a dead letter?
It is remarkable that the principle for which men now contend was anticipated by the Corinthians, and is forever condemned in this very chapter xiv. of the first epistle. The Corinthian brethren also wished a certain “pliancy” in their church. They saw that some of their females were endowed with gifts. Why should people of habits so different from those in Judea, or proconsular Asia, be conformed to exactly the same type? “That would have been Judaism indeed.” Surely the apostle of the Gentiles had no idea of conforming all in different countries to the same model! Has not the church power to decree rites and ceremonies? has it not authority in controversies of faith? The apostle of the Gentiles does pronounce on the case, but it is to put down with peremptory hand this licentious self-will which forgets that the Church, even on earth and though composed of living men, is a divine institution, and cannot be altered in its landmarks without rebellion. Did they contend for tongues in the assembly? Did they come together every one full of his own contribution? Did they prophesy ever so many on the same occasion? Did they allow women to speak in the assembly? These were abuses of Christian liberty in the assembly, which must be subject to apostolic ordinance, instead of arrogating the title to please itself according to race, age, or country. “What came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” This is the alternative for the Christian Observer as well as for ourselves. Which of us owns and seeks subjection to the things the apostle of the Gentiles wrote to the Corinthians? Which of us contends for leave to give up this very portion of scripture as of present obligation? Which of us seeks to originate methods of our own as the Corinthians did? Which of us insists that the word of God comes to us only (not from us as “a certain pliancy” would imply)?
As for the notion that it is illogical to contend for the permanent supply of evangelists, pastors, and teachers, if apostles and prophets are not now vouchsafed, I can only stand amazed at the extent of these men's incredulity as well as ignorance. Are they so far gone as to think that we must have either all the gifts the ascended Christ conferred on the Church at first, or none? Had we the miraculous sign-gifts of those early days, 1 Cor. 14 forbids their exercise, save under peculiar circumstances in the assembly; whereas the edification-gifts were exactly in place and season there. Does this writer believe that we have no edification-gifts now? no evangelists, pastors, teachers? or will he boldly take the other side and claim the continued supply of apostles and prophets too? Nothing is simpler than that the Lord does not furnish gifts to lay the foundation when the foundation is laid; but that He in faithful love continues all gifts needed to build up the saints “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:1313Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4:13).) If these divine gifts exist (as we believe) among all Christians, Anglicans, Dissenters, as well as ourselves, it is Pharisaic and foolish to enforce the divine rules? Is it not Corinthianism to seek other rules or no rules at all?
Next, as to Calvin's note on 1 Cor. 1:2121For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21) (p. 904), so far from being opposed to our views, few brethren have taught or commented on this epistle, as on others, without similar reflections. God is long-suffering and faithful; but a real assembly of His may be distracted by countless elements of sin, shame, and sorrow. The Christian Observer does not understand our aim, nor does Calvin touch the point. Since Catholicism swamped Christendom, breaking out into the rival systems of the east and west, there has been no gathering of God's children in the power of the Spirit to the name of the Lord as their true and everlasting center on earth. The Reformation, which did so much for putting man in presence of God's word and proclaiming justification by faith, did not clear the revealed truth as to the Church, ministry, worship, &c., from the rubbish of ages. On the contrary, it embarrassed the ecclesiastical difficulty by giving rise to national churches, each with its own peculiar system of government, ministry, and discipline, independent and coordinate. This was pushed out yet farther by the non-conformists at home and abroad who claimed the title to frame churches of their own. So that the result was (not the Church of God on earth, one body, energized by one Spirit, with local assemblies doubtless, but the members and ministers in the unity of Christ's body, but) distinct bodies, Roman Catholic or Greek, National or Dissenting with no proper intercommunion, save occasional or by courtesy, but contrariwise membership and ministry in a church, so that to be a member or minister of one is incompatible with belonging to another. What people call Plymouth Brethrenism is the recall of Christians to the original state of things in its essential features, as of eternal obligation and the only groundwork truly divine. We leave it with God to give this re-assertion of the Church according to Scripture that acceptance which seems good in His eyes; but whether we convince others or not, our own duty remains clear, as it is our joy and, we believe, both glorifying to God and profitable to His children.
It is curious, however, that the Christian Observer omits in its citation the pith of Calvin's answer to the question what appearance of a church was any longer presented in Corinth. Let me supply his words, “Respondeo: Qnum illi dictum esset a Domino, Ne timeas, populus hic mihi multus est (Act. 18:9): hujus promissionis memorem id honoris paucis bonis detulisse, ut Ecclesiam agnosceret in magna improborum multitudine. Deinde,” &c. The Lord's word that He had much people in that city sustained his hopes spite of appearances. Now, although satisfied Calvin did not seize the truth of scripture as to much, any more than other great and good men of that day, yet I do not dissent from his conclusion that the true assembly of God in any place may be painfully afflicted with all sorts of evil in the members. 1 Cor. 5 is explicit, as are other scriptures, that it is not the amount of sin that may enter or spring up in the midst, but the refusal to judge, and the consequent sanction given to evil there, which destroys the corporate title of the Church as God's witness here below.
The reader may gather hence how little either the Donatists or the Plymouth Brethren so-called are understood, classed as they are here together. “They are attempting what the Donatists attempted in the first century.” (p. 904.) This at least is a discovery! I had been content to know with less pretentious students of ecclesiastical history, that the squabble about the election of Caecilianus (A.D. 311), is the earliest point to which we could look as giving occasion for that famous rent in Africa. From the works of Optatus and Augustine I had learned nearly all that can be ascertained about that turbulent faction. It seemed to be far more a question of discipline than of doctrine if not of party opposition, the Numidian bishops being piqued that they had no part as usual in the election. Felix, bishop of Apthunga, who ordained the new bishop of Carthage, was said to be a traditor during the persecution of Dioclesian, and Caecilianus himself also was accused of ill conduct at that time. The elder Donatus who took part in the election of Majorinus, the Bishop of the seceders, was the bishop of Casae Nigrae of that day; the greater one, who seems to have given the name of Donatists to the party, was successor of Majorinus. Spite of a fierce persecution, which Augustine palliated in the hope that it would be good for their souls, they appear to have gone on sometimes flourishing, and sometimes depressed, till Mohammedanism extinguished both them and the Catholics. Insisting on the rebaptism of all whom they received from their adversaries and refusing all communion save to such as absolutely broke off spiritual connection with others, they differed essentially from the so-called Plymouth Brethren. For we believe, that no ecclesiastical mistake, however grave in itself, calls for such stringent measures, and that extremities ought to be reserved for those who bring not the doctrine of Christ or connive at it.
But there is another discovery as to Scripture which rivals the Christian Observer's sight of the Donatists in the first century, and this in the very next sentence of the same paragraph. (P. 904.) “It is as clear as anything can be, that there never was the ‘one body' in the sense the Plymouth Brethren would put upon the words, that is, a church consisting exclusively of true saints (?) in perfect unity one with another (?) since the day that the three thousand, along with the previous hundred and twenty true disciples, assembled with one accord at Jerusalem, and had all things common. The Corinthian Church certainly exhibited the reverse of this: and indeed, in all the apostolic churches, as described in the epistles, we find precisely the same evils, more or less, and still greater moral evils prevailing, than can be found now in any community of Christians. Are there no similar evils, even among ‘the Brethren' themselves, with all their pretensions to oneness and to exclusive purity?” (Pp. 904, 905.) I know not how godly Anglicans relish such remarks as these on the dead as well as the living; but I avow that a lower tone of spiritual judgment it has rarely been my pain to meet with. Defamation of the apostolic church seems natural to those who apologize for Christendom as it is, and dislike the testimony to their own departure from God's word. Here every notion, every statement, is false. The sense said to be put on the words “the one body” is never given by us. We do say that none were received who were not accredited as “true saints;” but we always allow that our brethren of old, like ourselves now, were liable to be imposed on for a time by deceivers or self-deceivers. Such, however, are apt to fall soon into evil of word or deed, were they as clever as Simon Magus, and thus bring themselves by their manifest iniquity under the discipline of the Church. Next, it is a strange deduction from our writings to infer that our sense of the one body supposes not only the Church to consist of none but true saints, but these “in perfect unity one with another,” since the same writer pretends that we count the Corinthians to have been the model for all churches. For the first evil denounced in the first epistle is their schismatical state, which forced the apostle to exhort them to be perfectly united in the same mind, just because they were not. Yet there are throughout more frequent implications that they belonged to “the one body” than in any other epistle; though, of course, the fact that such was their privilege is as often urged to correct their practical short-coming. See especially 1 Cor. 10:16-21; 12:12-2716The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 17For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. 18Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? 19What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? 20But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. 21Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. (1 Corinthians 10:16‑21)
12For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. 13For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 14For the body is not one member, but many. 15If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? 16And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? 17If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? 18But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. 19And if they were all one member, where were the body? 20But now are they many members, yet but one body. 21And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. 22Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: 23And those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. 24For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked: 25That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. 26And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. 27Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. (1 Corinthians 12:12‑27). I do not hide for a moment the extent to which unwatchfulness exposed the inexperienced Corinthian assembly to gross evil, the remains of old heathen habits, or the effect of wondrous power at work among souls so little used to walk in self-judgment and the conscious presence of God. But there is about as much truth or right feeling in the odious comparison of that church with modern communions to the advantage of the latter, as if it were said that the apostles Peter and Paul were not quite so respectable ministers as the modern clergymen of Nationalism or Dissent. The essential thing to remember is that the Corinthians had been really gathered according to God; and though Satan brought in exceeding mischief, still they were in a position and free to use divine remedies according to His word, neither of which features is true of modern communities.
As to the attack, on ourselves, in the rest of the article (pp. 905-913), it is not for us to speak in self-vindication. We can trust God and are not careful to answer such charges; and the rather, as it is evident the writer knows scarcely anything about us. Others will and ought to look more to the realities of things, judged by scripture, than to the thoughts and feelings either of ourselves or of our accusers. Mere vituperation has no force save for the weak and worthless; rarely is it the servant of a good cause. The question of Christendom is with the revealed word, rather than with those who cannot depart from that word knowingly, save at the peril of the soul and in opposition to God Himself. No dissenter who knows us will admit that we have a special dislike of the English Establishment. Equally untrue is it that “Brethren,” to maintain their position, “give us a new version of the scriptures under the title of a ‘Synopsis of the Books of the Bible,' which is their ‘Douay Version.'“ (P. 905.) Mark the trustworthiness of the Christian Observer in common matters before all eyes. The writer must speak at random of what he cannot have examined, if he ever touched the works alluded to. For the fact is that the “Synopsis” is not in any sense a version of the Bible, though its author has also translated the Greek Testament into German and French as well as English. But the most learned men of the English Establishment have recorded their judgment of this English translation, which one of them, inferior as a textual critic to none in this country, recommended to his divinity classes. The writer can know neither the “Synopsis” nor the 'version; else he could not have confounded them, nor have foolishly sneered at either, as “their Douay version.” The “daring dogmatism” of describing the aim and object of each book of scripture, is just what every annotator and every expounder does every day. The only question is, whether the work be done with spiritual insight, accuracy, and comprehensiveness. It requires no great penetration to see that the Epistle to the Romans, for instance, is not addressed to the assembly as such, but to the saints at Rome (i.e., in their individual standing) and hence, as in chapter 8, brings out their position very fully as “children” and heirs of God. 1 Corinthians, as we have seen, is far more ecclesiastical. He who denounces such self-evident facts as to these epistles may not be a dogmatist nor write mistily; but certainly he must dwell in a land of Egyptian darkness. Would he fain condemn us to the intolerant yoke of his own dullness?
Of the three anecdotes next given to illustrate the spirit of the “Brethren,” I know that the two public ones are not stated truthfully. May one ask if the private case is any better? Is a monstrous tale against well and long known servants of God to be received because it is evil, though none among those acquainted with the facts feels the least need of contradicting it? Trashy scandal neither deserves nor needs notice though some have a natural liking for it. Further, I never knew any “Brother” object to join in family worship conducted by Christians in a Christian manner. And I am perfectly sure that separating the wife from the husband, save for reasons which all Christians would hold as decisive, would never be tolerated in our midst. We have no controversy with our brethren as to such matters; and no man or woman guilty of such shameful impropriety would be allowed a place in fellowship. What can one think then of statements so reckless? or of those who deign to employ them for party or any other ends?
As to our essentially schismatical and sectarian spirit (pp. 906, 907), we have suffered not a little in vain, if we do not utterly condemn it, fruit, branch, and root. But how is it schismatical to abandon all schisms, whether national or dissenting, in order to recur to the original and constitutive principles of God's Church? Is this what the apostle denounces in Rom. 16:17, 1817Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 18For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. (Romans 16:17‑18)?
It is observable too that in excusing their own intolerance of our refusal to join in ways which we are sure are unscriptural, the Christian Observer avows its gross latitudinarianism. To us it is no matter of opinion but of faith to worship God as the apostolic) church was called to do in holy writings still vouchsafed and obligatory. It is not charity to give up conscience, or to allow self-will, but this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. To talk about the wise and good of all generations, is idle and false; seeing that every wise and good man knows that the original church action and worship have been abandoned for many ages in Christendom, and that the best and wisest of the reformers (i.e. those who laid the present basis of the greater Protestant bodies) owned how far short they were of the primitive state, and that many of them then and since contested these questions hotly with one another. There are ever so many different modes of worship in Christendom, which may all be wrong but cannot more than one be right. Why this rancor? Is it not fear or hatred of the truth that condemns them? “Brethren” felt that there was no use in owning one thing and doing another, and therefore necessarily left what was wrong in order to do the right thing according to scripture. The Pharisees did not leave the religion of the day, but gave themselves proud airs at no cost in it. Would it have been more righteous or charitable to have gone on, owning our common defection from scriptural duties, but yet persisting in that which we believed to be sinful? This seems precisely what the Christian Observer thinks a more desirable course. Let Christian conscience judge. We have judged that we ought to cease to do evil and learn to do well; and of course where such matters come before us, we lay this as an evident duly on all who see that they are in a false position but are disposed to tamper with a good conscience by remaining in it. Where is the “sectarian spirit,” save in those who take fire at this?
I do firmly and openly tell all these defenders of Christendom against the authority of scripture and the rights of the Holy Ghost, that God's glory is and should be the aim of the Christian, and not only the salvation of souls. I tell them that in vain they worship Him, teaching for doctrine the commandments and notions and practices of men. I tell them that for Christian men it is of the utmost moment both for His glory and the good of themselves and their brethren that they should recognize and follow His will, as about other things, so about His assembly; for they are members of it, and so much the greater is their condemnation if they (through tradition, prejudice, haste, or any other cause) neglect that which so intimately concerns both Him and them. He who truly believes in the Savior but does not understand the assembly of God, or his own responsibility in respect of it, will not be lost; but the man who treats a matter which runs through a vast part of the New Testament so lightly as to class it with “foolish and unlearned questions,” is bolder than one ought to be with the divine truth be does not see, as he will learn to his cost in the day that is fast approaching.
Do the readers of the Christian Observer think that its managers will damage any but themselves by citing 1 Tim. 6:44He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, (1 Timothy 6:4), as if it applied specially to those they call “Plymouth Brethren?” I admit it. is as close to or as wide of the mark as the rest of their diatribe; but it must be manifest to unbiased men in their own community, that this sort of thing is mere rant. The apostle was denouncing those who sought to make slaves discontented with their masters, especially believing masters. Are “Brethren” men destitute of the truth who suppose that piety is gain? Others there are, most will allow, who lay themselves rather more open to the appearance of using religion and its service as a means of worldly advantage.
Among our logomachies they class objections made to the character of the English Liturgy, to language which confounds the believer's need of forgiveness day by day with the unbeliever's need of remission through the blood of Christ; and, above all, to expressions which cloud the great truth of the Spirit given to all Christians, with desires after greater power of the Spirit. I pity those who count these “foolish questions;” but our objections go much farther than any phraseology however beneath Christian privilege.
But when it is next said that “they confound atonement with pardon on the conditions of repentance and faith, and make faith a mere assent of the mind to a fact,” &c. (page 208), they assert what is directly opposed to truth. This, I should judge, was gathered out of a Methodist preacher's attack, or an article in a Wesleyan organ founded on it. Let me tell them that, without boasting of our knowledge, I do not believe they will produce one man, woman, or child among us guilty of that confusion which they so inconsiderately impute to us as a class; and that no man holding the Sandemanian or Walkerite doctrine, which reduces faith to a mere mental assent, would be knowingly received amongst us. We hold universally that faith is the soul's reception of a divine testimony by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost.
Again, the Christian Observer must be strangely uninformed of the sentiments of Christians in general, if they do not know that some of the best and ablest men among the Evangelical clergy repudiate the mingling of Christ's legal obedience during His life with the ground of justification. We all agree that Christ obeyed the law perfectly, and that this was needful to vindicate God who gave it; but it is infatuation to think that this proves His law-keeping to be the very basis of the merit of His death as our substitute. These men, like others, are feeble in their apprehension of the divine judgment of sin and sins in the cross. The union of the divine and human natures in Christ's person, His sinless life, His obedience, were all necessary to redemption. The true question is, by what was atonement wrought? With what does scripture connect our justification?
“Brethren” know nothing of imputed sanctification, which really deserves the sneer which J. Wesley cast on imputed righteousness. It is false that such is our doctrine. Every man who knows ourselves or our teaching in any moderate degree, must confess that we insist on a holy walk, as Paul does, because we are under grace, not law. It needs no argument to see that “they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh,” does not mean daily practice but the ground of it. Really the Christian Observer's grammar is very peculiar, not to speak of the doctrine. Do they not know that the Aorist implies a single act, as opposed to what is continuous; or a completed act, as opposed to what is in progress? I do say that Gal. 5:2424And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5:24) speaks of what is “done already;” and I defy any man to prove otherwise. Other scriptures teach a process going on, but not this passage.
If the Christian Observer stands to this, there are more intelligent clergy and laymen who will join with those they blame. It is not a question of substitution alone, but of imparting a real life to the believer, everlasting life in Christ; so that they, possessed of that very life in Him, are called now to walk in the Spirit according to the characteristics of His life in whose cross the flesh, with all its activities and issues, was judged. Is this religion made easy? Ignorance of Christ and the cross may so deem it, but nothing else can. Life is not a question of imputation but of impartation; and the believer, accounted righteous, has life in Christ. This will show how far men are to be trusted who talk of imputed sanctification as the doctrine of the Plymouth Teachers. It is only the misapprehension of the writer. We hold that the believer is sanctified through the offering of Christ's body once for all, and that, besides, he has to pursue peace and holiness (or sanctification) without which none shall see the Lord. What, then, means this senseless outcry? It is unquestionably false witness, which is even more conspicuous in the next paragraph; where a “subtle and specious heresy,". “very pernicious errors,” “Satan's snares,” “angel of light,” open the way to a wholesale application of 2 Tim. 3 to us. Now is it not remarkable that the provision of the apostle against the perils of the last days (which is the real aim of the passage, and of evident bearing on that assumption which is so apt to impose on the morbid, especially on the weaker vessel) is precisely what “Brethren” everywhere press—the value of every written word of God?
I do not deprecate the violence of the Christian Observer, nor should I tax them with “uncharitableness” if their assaults were founded on God's truth. But they falsely accuse us of desiring or allowing liberty to the flesh, which is incompatible with giving due place to the Spirit and word of God, but may and does co-exist well with human ordinances, ecclesiastical creeds, and worldly plans of government, substituted for God's system of His Church. But they betray themselves in the next breath; for after asserting in page 907, their large allowance for differences in modes of worship, as well as in opinion, in other communions, they maintain in page 911 that “separation from a church like that happily established in this land is nothing less than needless schism.” This blind self-complacency in their own religious system (at an hour when its powerlessness to deal with Infidelity, Popery, not to speak of heterodoxy and wickedness of the grossest kinds within its own borders and even in its highest seats) would be ridiculous, if it were not a fitter object for pity and grief. How often must one repeat that no amount of good points and persons can make an association to be God's Church, unless it be the assembly of those recognized as God's saints gathered in the Lord's name, and in subjection to the word and Spirit of God. This the Anglican system never was, any more than the various associations of Dissent. To meet on this ground, of course separate from every unscriptural form, as far as we know it, is the aim of “Brethren,” and the ground of the Christian Observer's charge of schism, which to us seems no better than the blindness of prejudice, as it flows from sheer ignorance. It is evident, moreover, that if Anglicanism were really God's Church in England, every species of Dissent would be schism according to page 911, and the large allowance of differences of worship in other communions would be wholly unjustifiable, contrary to page 907. The fact is, that the premises and the conclusions of this writer are altogether and equally at fault. Separation from that which is not God's Church, though pretending to it, is not necessarily to create a fresh sect (as some absurdly conceive), an absolutely necessary condition if we would “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Am “I free to abide in a body whose membership and ministry I believe to be opposed to God's word? I might, no doubt, have continued a member of it, lay or clerical, like some thousands, alas! even of real Christians, not to speak of others, who are convinced, like myself, that it is a mere human politico-religious system, and not a Church of God any more than societies framed on the narrow basis of some peculiar and perhaps mistaken ordinance, the denial of external divine institutions, or the maintenance of some earthly founder's plan. Do they really believe that subscribing Art. vi. absolves their consciences, either in using formularies they know to be unscriptural, or in not obeying the scriptures as to the assembly, the Spirit's action there, ministry, discipline, &c.; in short, in never doing the right and always doing the wrong thing in matters that concern the Lord's glory in the Church here below? Tetzel offered indulgences for sin cheap enough, and yet too dear in result; but what shall we say of this evangelical license for a pliant conscience?
Further, I can understand prejudice steeling a man against the scriptural evidence we produce for the nature of God's Church, and the presence and operation of the Holy Ghost in it; but he who treats such a matter as a crotchet or a persuasion about meats or drinks (page 912), and not as a fundamental question for the believer and the Church, does not seem to me, I confess, qualified spiritually, morally, or intellectually to assume the place of an instructor in divine things. It is easy for such a mind to fling out accusations of “mental idolatry” and “singular obstinacy;” it may even appear loving and Christ-like to argue that the apostle classes us as the ἄσπονδοι, the implacables or irreconcilables, with the most wicked of characters. Does he think it consistent with this in the next and final paragraph (p. 913) to admit that the “Plymouth Brethren” have got hold of a good deal of scripture truth, and have, most of them, no deliberate intention of doing wrong; and (believing, as they easily can, that some of them possess considerable gifts) to suggest some sort of linsey-wolsey spiritual occupation in the English Establishment? With such dreary jokes (if a joke this part, or the whole, of the paper can be) in serious matters I have no sympathy. But I may say (with unfeigned respect and love to the saints of God I know, and the many more I can believe to be, in that system,) that from first to last more sorry specimens of a religious essay than these of the Christian Observer on the “Plymouth Brethren,” it has not been my lot to find, even in a day when the press teems with productions which have not a grain of personal modesty, love to brethren, fear of God, or real knowledge of His truth. Did they design to expose themselves or to prove the value of what we have learned from scripture, I doubt that they could do either more effectually than to commit a principal organ of the Evangelical party to attacks which injure none but themselves, and themselves in every point of view, with men of intelligence.