But some may ask, Then do you advocate amalgamation?
By no means. Amalgamation is a fleshly device of “agreeing to differ,” or “compromising principles.” If mistakes have been made in the past, then no harm can come of owning them frankly. But conscience is individual, and each one must be left free before the Lord in this respect. However this may be, no one, surely, can question the truth of the principle unfolded in Psalm 133, which doubtless speaks of a future day, and a different dispensation to our own―
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity... for there the Lord commanded the blessing.”
For an object-lesson we have but to compare the difference between what is seen in England and on the Continent. In the latter place, where the divisions have happily never come, but where grace has been given to dwell together in unity, there indeed the blessing has been vouchsafed in large measure. The work spreads in every direction, new gatherings are formed and old ones increase in size, many conversions take place, the young feel encouraged to tread the path their fathers have trod before them. The constant addition to their gatherings of the young, and the sound and helpful ministry of the Word causes the work to spread in a healthy manner. May the Lord bless them more and more, and preserve them from the blight of division and other evil until He come!
We wish that all our English brethren could witness with their own eyes what it is our privilege to see from time to time. Joy, and it may be sadness in some measure, would fill their hearts―joy at the sight of what grace has wrought on the one hand; sadness, on the other, at the remembrance of what might have been at home had wiser counsels prevailed. The same apostle could write in the case of one assembly of “joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ” (Col. 2:5); of another, “If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another” (Gal. 5:15), while he exhorted yet another in the following words:
“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.
“From whom the whole body” ―not a section or sections, however privileged and enlightened, but the Church in its entirety― “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:15, 16).
The same apostle agonized in prayer for more than one assembly, namely, “for you (i.e. Colosse) and for them at Laodicea”; and also for as many as had not seen his face in the flesh—and here, surely, we ourselves are included:
“That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God” (Col. 2:1, 2).
We do not wish to make light of Scriptural discipline, but is there not a danger of being over-occupied therewith? and do not the flesh and party spirit ofttimes obtrude themselves therein? Where such is the case, as in 3 John, the Spirit of God, through the beloved disciple, does not exhort the suffering saints that they should bow to the decision of the assembly, an exhortation which, under the circumstances, could not be given, but beseeches in these words:
“Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God. Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself; yea, and we also bear record” (3 John 11, 12).
The same apostle exhorts to the firm and decided rejection of the evil-working heretic on the one hand (2 John); and, on the other, to the reception in love and without suspicion of those who have gone forth for Christ’s name’s sake, for by this means we might be “fellow-helpers to the truth.”
“Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers;
“Which have borne witness of thy charity (love) before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well:
“Because that for His name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles.
“We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellow-helpers to the truth” (3 John 5-8).
These brethren were strangers, unknown to Gaius; they were sort of itinerant preachers, but, unlike those of the Second Epistle, they brought the truth. They sought Christ’s glory and had gone forth for His name’s sake, not for filthy lucre’s sake. The apostle exhorts Gaius to show them all brotherly love and fellowship. Diotrephes might refuse them, as he even refused the apostle himself, but Gaius is exhorted to “receive such.”
ED.