MY DEAR— : In Corinth there existed, in the apostles' day, a company of people who had believed the gospel, been born again of the Holy Ghost, baptized by Him into " one body," gathered out by Him from among Jews and Gentiles, and gathered to the name of Jesus.
Every Lord's day (not to speak of other occasions) these were, by the same Holy Ghost, " gathered together" unto His name (Matt. 18:2020For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20); 1 Cor. 5:44In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, (1 Corinthians 5:4)); for He had promised when so "gathered " He would be in the midst; and, as gathered by the Holy Ghost, they assembled or came together to meet with Him (1 Cor. 14:23,2623If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? (1 Corinthians 14:23)
26How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. (1 Corinthians 14:26); Heb. 10:2525Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:25)).
They did not meet as a voluntary society of man's creation or device, but as the church or assembly of God (1 Cor. 1:22Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: (1 Corinthians 1:2))-an association or body of His forming-in their respective places, in which they had been set, not by their own choice, but by Him (1 Cor. 12:1818But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. (1 Corinthians 12:18)). They had neither option, choice, nor selection in the matter, and there was as yet, in that day and city, nothing else under the Christian name to tempt them into any other position.
We know from Acts 18 that the apostle Paul had been the Holy Ghost's instrument for the original calling of that assembly. We know from passages in his letters to them (1 Cor. 12:29,30,8-11; 13, 23, etc.), that they had, in the midst, gifted persons of some at least of the classes of which the apostle declared to them that God had set such in the assembly (1 Cor. 12:2828And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12:28)).
It does not, however, appear that they had among them anything like what is now known as " a stated or " settled ministry." There is no hint, either in Acts or in the Epistles of anything like a " minister," "presiding elder," or other officer, conducting or regulating " the services " in their assemblies, or presiding at the Lord's table. The absence of any such personage is evident; first, from the absence of any allusion to him either in the apostle's reproofs, instructions, or salutations; second, from the fact, evident in the whole tone of the apostle's admonitions and instructions, in chapters 11.-14., that the freedom of ministry in their meetings was wholly unrestrained by the presence of any one in authority, It is further evident from the epistles, that though these persons were by the Holy Ghost denominated "saints" (chap. 1: 2), there was still existing in and among them an evil element, known in Scripture as "the flesh," which " flesh " made known its presence by some at least of the works described by the apostle in Gal. 1:19-2119But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. 20Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. 21Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; (Galatians 1:19‑21) as peculiar to it; for in chapter 5. of his first letter the apostle had to tax them with one of its ugliest works, and to warn them against several others. In 11:21 he had to blame them for another of these-drunkenness, under the most atrocious circumstances, at the Lord's table, and in company with gluttony; in 1:11 he had to reprove them for " contentions;" in 3:3, for " envying, strife, and factions; in 4:19, for being puffed up; in 6:1, for going to law; in 11. and 14., for such abuses of ministry and the Lord's supper as made their coming together " not for the better, but for the worse," inasmuch as there were " divisions " among them (ver. 18), women were being allowed to take part in the meetings, display in the use of tongues was allowed to usurp the place of edification, and such unseemly disorder in the exercise of prophesyings prevailed, as proved that they were not acting in the Spirit, since " God is not the author of confusion."
It further appears that the presence of these carnal " contentions," " factions," and " schisms" began to take the form of cliques, grouping themselves together under different names, as Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and even the sacred name of Christ was made among them a party name.
It is pretty evident, from the silence on the subject in the second epistle, that the apostle's admonition took effect, and suppressed, for the time at all events, the development of this sectarian spirit into open rupture, which was well.
We may, however, picture to ourselves the state of things which must have resulted had this been otherwise, as by so doing we may find help in seizing on certain important principles bearing on our own position.
Let us imagine that the factions in Corinth had run at last so high that on some given Lord's day each of those named by the apostle had concluded to separate itself from the others, and had secured a separate place of meeting; so that on that Lord's day morning, instead of the one original assembly we have thus far been occupied with, there were found also in Corinth four other meetings, each in its respective building, under its respective name of Paulites, Apollites, Cephites, and Christites, or Christ-ians.
What now would be the position of affairs, and what the respective merits of the five assemblies?
First, there would be four distinct meetings, each with a name adopted for the express purpose of distinguishing it from all the other Christians in Corinth. It is not that they had renounced the Christian name; for they still call themselves Christians; but it is that Christians want now to distinguish themselves, and whom they desire to exclude from their fellowship, unless they be willing to identify themselves with their attitude and position. Christians having divided, would now need other names beside that of Christian to mark them out. Before, they only needed a name to distinguish them from Jews or heathen, and Christian was enough for that. They now want to distinguish Christians from Christians. They are Christians still; but they are now Christians of a peculiar kind. They are Paulite Christians, and Apollite Christians, and so forth.
And then, as they have now divided, and got their separate places of meeting, these also receive the name of those who assemble in them; and there would have sprung up the Paulite meeting-house, the Apollite or Cephite church or chapel, or what else they might call it.
The ground of people's gathering together into any place of assembly is, their reason for their being there. So long as all the saints or brethren in Corinth assembled in one place, they do so because they had all one common object, one common name, one common center. Their object was Christ. That name, object, and center drew them out, and marked them off from Gentilism on the one hand, and from Judaism on the other.
Once they had divided, the reason of their being each in their respective places, instead of all in one, or on one common ground, would have been quite different.
If a Paulite had been asked on the Lord's day morning, as he was seen turning into the Paulite meeting-house, why he went there, instead of going where he had been wont, his honest answer must have been, that he was going thither because he was a Paulite, and that was where the Paulites met.
They were meeting now as Paulites, gathered in the name of Paul. They had not cast off their Christianity; they would still have insisted on being owned as Christians; but they had added something to their Christianity. Supposing it to have been nothing more than a name, it still constituted a new kind of Christianity-a new ground of gathering. It is not that which was from the beginning. It was not therefore the Christianity of Christ on the ground of God. Had these Paulites been satisfied with Christianity as God gave it, they would not have needed either a new name or a new place of assembly. They would have been content to have gone on with the old name, and the old place. It is the new thing-the new attitude towards their fellow-Christians-the new ground of meeting together, that called for the new name.
The attitude of these Paulites towards those still on the original ground, and towards the others, would have been this: They would have maintained towards both: We are as much Christians as yourselves. We meet in the name of the Lord as much as you, and we come together for the very same object as yourselves; only, we withdraw from you, who most unreasonably insist on calling yourselves only by the name of Christians, because we believe it good to introduce some little changes into our church order and ministry, that we feel quite sure that Paul would approve, though he may not have prescribed them. And as you will not have it in the meetings, and will not have fellowship with us in doing it, we think best to leave you to yourselves; and so all of us who are agreed about it say " good-bye " to you, and meet now where we have liberty to please ourselves about it. And in order to distinguish us from you, and from others who have gone out on different grounds, we choose to call ourselves Paulites-Paulite Christians, remember; for we are as good Christians as you, only that name is hardly enough now to " denominate" us. It would confound us with you. Then as to you others who call yourselves Apollites, or Cephites, while we fully acknowledge your liberty to please yourselves as well as we, yet we think that the changes you have added to the old thing are not nearly so good as our own; and so, though we have less objection to you than to those other narrow-minded people who will not budge an inch from what they find written down for them, still, you see, we couldn't get along with you either. So we must just agree to differ, and meet apart, each in our own place, and under our own " denominational name." At the same time, we do not want to be illiberal; and so, since we still own you as Christians, we will allow any of you that like to come occasionally and sit down at our table, and we may some of us occasionally come to you in the same way, so as to show the world that though we are divided we are still one. We would be willing to do the same with those other people too, only they will not interchange such courtesies with us, straitlaced and narrow-minded as they are.
Such would of necessity have been more or less the attitude towards the others, of each of the new " denominations."
And what of the attitude of the original body? It must have been this. They would have said to these seceders: We have in our hands Paul's letter in which he warns us against names and factions and divisions; in which he tells us that "the body is one," and that it is the mind of God " that there should be no schism in the body," since He has formed it Him-self by His Spirit, and " tempered the body together," and " set the members, every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him;" and we cannot consent to attempt improvements on what God has done. If He had judged those things to be needful or good which you have adopted, He would have appointed them, and in some part of His word we should have found it mentioned. As long as we had Paul here we could appeal to him, but though he is away we have his writings and those of the others, and we cannot consent to changes outside of 'these,, for to be so would be to depart from God's ground on which He set us. You may be quite well intentioned and sincere in what you have adopted; that we do not deny. We have to own, to our shame and sorrow, that the disorders that have from time to time crept in among us, from want of self-judgment and from indulgence of the flesh, are very sad; we own most fully that it is shameful work that drunkenness and such like disorders should intrude themselves at the Lord's table; we own that you have good reason to feel deeply about it; but when you adopt as a cure a mere invention of your own that has not a bit of warrant in the word of God, and elect a person to " preside " at the table and administer what you are pleased to call now a " sacrament," you see, dear brethren, we cannot possibly go with you in this, or have the least fellowship with you in it it is not a thing of God's appointment, and without His orders we cannot act; to do so were to leave the ground on which He set us, and to cease therefore to be the thing He made us-the Church of God. The moment we begin to let our wisdom or our wills give shape to our organization, we should become a mere voluntary society, a place for the will of man to act in; whereas as God's assembly, a society of His forming, whose organization is of Him; we can own and follow no will but His in anything that touches, our order or ground.
For similar reasons, when some of you adopt opinion that the best way to check abuses in the ministry of the word, keep out ignorance or rudeness of speech, prevent jealousies, and so forth, is to educate and ordain a class of persons for the purpose, to whom all ministerial functions shall be restrained, we do not doubt you mean well by it, and we see a certain plausibility about it on grounds of human expediency; but then we have no word of God for such an institution; and we dare not go beyond, and substitute human expediency for divine order. We tremble to go beyond the mind of the Lord. We cannot forget that in a former day these evils you seek to correct had already begun to show themselves, and as you know, in Paul's first letter to us he dealt pretty roundly with us about them. Now surely if the plans you have adopted had been the wisest, or according to the mind of God, he would by the Spirit have been led to establish among us what was needful; but as he did not do it, no more can we. And though we are very sorry you should separate yourselves from us on such grounds, we feel that in it you greatly dishonor the Lord, yet we dare not purchase even so precious a thing as unity at the expense of truth, and of the very foundations of our character as " God's assembly." Your new-fangled organizations are a practical denial of God's own organization, who has organized the " one body " as it hath pleased Him, and left us in His word the complete record of His mind about it. In setting yourselves apart in bodies of your own organizing, you give the lie to God's word, that " the body is one; and we dare not either have part with or own you in any such position. You call us narrow and exclusive because we decline to have fellowship with you at these tables you have set up; but we must be faithful to our Lord, no matter what reproach it may bring on us.
Then, as to those of you who make doctrinal interpretations of the word your ground of separation from others, and of association among yourselves; we can just as little go with, or yield to you, as to the others. We own how evil it is that we should be of different minds as to the meaning of God's word. We acknowledge that as the word can have but one meaning, there must be sin and the blinding influences of the flesh at work somewhere, on one side or other, where diversities of judgments prevail. We give full weight to the apostle's solemn admonition to us, that we should " all speak the same thing;" that we should be "perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same judgment;" but then we also bear in mind that this very word was given, not in order that we might divide into sections, where we could be mutually agreed in our respective thoughts or judgments, but in order that there should " be no schisms among us," and to allow our zeal for like-mindedness on difficult points of doctrine or interpretation, to lead us to do the very thing, for the avoidance of which like-mindedness was enjoined, seems rather a contradictory mode of procedure. Where the word of God speaks plainly in distinct affirmation, we have no hesitation; but where it is a question of lifting a man's inferences from the word to a level with the word itself, that is what we must decline. We see two parties among you separating from each other and from us, and organizing yourselves into opposing bodies under your respective party names, on the ground of your strong convictions as to the soundness of your respective inferences from certain Scriptures. You hold these opinions of yours as very important, no doubt, and are very strongly persuaded in your own minds that you are right, and that your way of it is God's way; but you seem quite to overlook the fact, that in your zeal for inferred truth, you are trampling on plainly-stated truth; for God has plainly forbidden division, and you are dividing. Now, to our sorrow, we have to own that we are unable at present to be all of one judgment on these matters, and have among us those who hold with one. and those who hold with the other, of your parties; but we cannot, dare not, attempt to remedy this evil by seeking to force the consciences of our brethren; there are assuredly inconveniences arising out of our want of unanimity on these points, but we dare not take matters into our own hands, as you have done, and make it more comfortable for ourselves by organizing sects and allying ourselves with only those who think with us. That is man's remedy, not God's, and in taking it, you, dear brethren, have made yourselves " sects," and have departed from God's ground, so that we cannot in faithfulness have anything to do with your organizations, since God's word by Paul, in his letter to the Romans (16:17), bids us mark them which cause divisions, and avoid them.
No, dear brethren, to one and all of you we must say it; we own you individually as our brethren in the Lord, and fellow-Christians. We shall rejoice to welcome you again to your respective places in the assembly of God, and at the Lord's table; but we can neither own or meet you, on the ground of your new organizations, bodies, and names. We shall remain ourselves steadfastly, by the grace of God, where He has set us, in the unity of the body of Christ; shall introduce no changes, but adhere closely to the written word in all that concerns our assembly action; leaving liberty to our brethren, where God has not expressly prescribed, as He Himself has taught us to do in Paul's letter to the Romans (16:1-5). As to the failure among us, we will not either extenuate or deny it; but will seek to humble ourselves about it before the Lord, looking up to Him for grace to deal with it in terms of His own divine instructions. If it take on it at any time the form of heresy, affecting the foundation truths of the doctrine of Christ, we shall deal with it as John has directed in his second letter. If it assumes the character of any of those things Paul pointed out to us in the fifth chapter of his letter to ourselves, we shall seek grace to deal with it as he there directs, and as we already did on the occasion he referred to. In inferior matters, we will endeavor, by prayer and mutual faithfulness to each other, and by self-judgment in ourselves, to restrain the flesh, and correct its evil working.
[TO BE CONCLUDED.]