Having been asked to put in writing comments which had been made on the pamphlet, entitled, “Christian Standing and Condition,” {by C. E. Stuart} I have reluctantly consented to do so. Many considerations would have made me prefer to keep silence. Feelings of deep regard and friendship for the author. The thought, too, that he has been in some instances charged with what he did not hold through a want of due care and consideration, occasioned me much pain and long prevented my touching the subject.
Had not the pamphlet been republished – without any apparent sense of the distress and offence which his views have caused to his brethren, after being entreated to withdraw it, evincing such insensibility to the confusion and the injurious effects everywhere threatened among saints by their circulation – I should not have felt called upon to notice it. But this gives a more serious aspect to the question, and the minds of saints are evidently being affected by them, and in every case, so far as I have seen to the weakening, or loss, of the heavenly side of truth.
Many, indeed, have felt this who could not dissect or point out what are the errors contained in these pamphlets, yet the strong feeling of resistance which they have aroused, arises, I doubt not from a sense of the importance of heavenly truth, even where the attempt to controvert them has not been free from mistakes. These mistakes have tended to confirm the author and his adherents in these views, and to confuse the simple who are thus led to suppose that the writer has been misunderstood, or that those who have tried to confute them are just as much in error themselves; whereas these mistakes in the interpretation or application of scripture are wholly different from an attempt to introduce a system of teaching at variance with what has been hitherto received amongst us, and which, if imbibed, will be found unconsciously to have undermined in the soul the heavenly place which God has given His saints. Mr. Stuart, I am sure, is far from intending this, and, probably, is quite unaware of any such effect, but I cannot conceal from myself that the enemy is using his views to the subversion of the truth and to the decided injury of souls, hence it becomes a duty, for his sake and theirs, to speak plainly, and to expose what is a serious danger for the church of God. God only knows the deep exercise of soul and conflict produced by esteem for the writer, and recollection of so many excellencies which the heart lingers over on the one hand and the paramount importance of the truth of God and the welfare of souls on the other.
The reader will have to weigh for himself what heavenly truth is worth to him, and whether he received it of God, and can now afford to relinquish it for a barren theory which is wholly inconsistent and cannot be held along with it; and he is entreated to give his earnest and impartial attention, and to seek light and help from God, whilst these views are brought to the test of the word of God, which is what indeed has been publicly and repeatedly invited by Mr. S. and those who uphold his teaching.
It has been supposed by many that all that is in question, is a different use of the word standing and other terms, but it will be seen that this is a very superficial idea and that different words convey very important differences of thought; nor is Mr. Stuart, we are well assured, by the way he writes, under any such mistaken impression.
A great cause of the danger to souls by this system is its deceptive and specious appearance, arising from the fact that it uses the same terms of scripture as others, but with a different meaning. Hence spiritual susceptibilities that have been rightly aroused, by the meagerness and poverty of what has been assumed to be the Christian standing, but which is as has been remarked, nothing but Jewish standing, have been allayed, by the mistaken supposition, that what is subtracted from the Christian’s standing, is given back to him in another way by Mr. S., when treating of Christian condition or being “in Christ,” and there seems reason to think this is Mr. Stuart’s own impression. But if it should appear that when Mr. S. speaks of being in Christ, he means something wholly different from what his brethren hold and what scripture teaches on this subject, and that the depravation of scripture and reduction of Christian position down to Jewish is still greater on this head, there will be loss of divine truth every way, notwithstanding the plausible and somewhat taking plea of greater accuracy. This ought to arouse those who are not wholly blinded by self-will and party spirit to discern the snare of the enemy and awaken jealousy for the Lord and His truth, and the welfare of His saints. At least we may hope this of those who have run well and desired the glory of the Lord, but who have had their minds temporarily beclouded by the darkening mists raised by the enemy of souls. May the unsuspecting author of them, through the mercy of God, have his eyes opened to discern them, and become by self-judgment the occasion of glory to God, and joy, to the hearts of his brethren.
It is remarkable that at the present moment, we should have to resist a double attack on the special privileges of the saints in this dispensation; Mr. Grant bringing us down, by what he teaches as to life and sealing, to the level of Old Testament saints, Mr. Stuart to the level of Millennial saints, as will appear in the following pages; each using for this purpose some of the same arguments as Mr. B. W. Newton when he made a strenuous effort to overthrow all dispensational truth, and thus fell into heresy. His assertion was that all saints were saved alike by the blood or work of Christ, and that to make a difference of heavenly position was to depreciate the value of that blood. Mr. S. uses the same argument, not to deny such difference, but practically to bring all down to a common level.