Dear brother G
Your letter reached me just as I was leaving yesterday afternoon. I am glad to hear of the interest you mention, and hope souls may be led on.
I have often had more or less difficulty on the point you mention as to receiving one who is on open ground, or a Grant brother, — one clear as to doctrine and personally godly, and ignorant of the evil in those positions. And I cannot say I can give a satisfactory answer to your questions. What I dread is the deceitfulness of the enemy, working through such cases. “Open Brethren” would like to amalgamate with us, ignoring the past. And if the door were open to any on that ground, it would be difficult to draw the line where we should stop. If one should be received, the other might press, Why not us? and serious trouble would result. This difficulty does not exist as to the sects in the same way. They have no thought of amalgamation.
Then none of the sects claim that they are on the ground of the one body, or that they are meeting on that principle. All those who are avowedly gathered to the Lord’s name claim this ground. The sects own one another as churches, and that all have a right to organize according to their own conscience. Their separate organizations are conveniences to suit their consciences, and they see no harm in organization. And they generally intercommune, though a few do not. Our habit has been to receive a godly Baptist or Presbyterian and the like. But where the avowed creed of a sect involves wickedness — bad fundamental doctrine, or unmoral conduct — a person still connected with such would not be received. He must sever his connection with a position in which he supports such a creed, before being received.
If, in the Briggs controversy, the body had, as such, adopted the wicked doctrines he held in connection with “Higher Criticism,” we could no longer receive a Presbyterian at the table, however godly, because, by his position he is linked with the wickedness. The same principle has seemed to me to apply to “Open Brethren,” because they adopted an evil principle as at Bethesda which opened the door to wickedness, and whatever may be the state of “Open Brethren” now, it is well known, that acting on the principles they adopted, they received persons who held the Newton heresy. Trotter’s paper shows this clearly. But even if they had not received such persons, they received those still linked with the wickedness, though they believed them to be personally clear of the doctrine. This principle they have never withdrawn. It was reiterated only a few years ago. And I have heard it maintained over and over again in the last few years by those on that ground, that we should receive all who are personally clear of the doctrine. A person among them being ignorant does not alter the fact that they are identified with the evil. This is where my difficulty lies. Many a one among them one would most gladly receive if only they broke the link with the evil. For the principle, compare Haggai 2:12,1312If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. 13Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. (Haggai 2:12‑13). The clean does not make the unclean clean; but the unclean makes the clean unclean.
But I have wandered from a point I was starting out to speak of, namely, the difference between a sect and those who once were on divine ground but have departed from it and still claim that they are on it. Now if they claim that they are on divine ground, to be consistent, they must maintain that we are not. Why then should they wish to break bread with us if they think we are at a schismatic table? We can deal with them as to this point in a way that we cannot with the sects, for the sects think the Lord’s table in one as well as another. With them it is only a question of greater soundness of creed in one than in another — not a question of schismatic table.
Then there is another point I have often thought of. The various sects of Protestantism show a struggle to get away from the awful corruption of the middle ages — the object not fully gained — but still a struggle toward the light.
Those who have learned the truth of the Church and have abandoned human system to be gathered simply to the name of the Lord Jesus on the ground of the one body, have come out into fuller light. And generally one from the sects desiring to break bread with us is feeling his way toward the fuller light and where this is the case he needs to be encouraged and helped on. But the position of “Open Brethren” or any who have abandoned the true ground, is the result of a retrograde movement — a distinct work of the enemy leading back to darkness. Many godly ones among them may in a measure recover themselves and even the body as such throw off much of the evil involved in the first assault of the enemy. But still the body remains as a witness to the departure from the truth. Do you not think this bears on the question of receiving?
Take the Raven movement: after the first attack of the enemy, there was a denial and refusal of much that was taught at first. There was an effort on the part of the body as such to throw off a measure of the evil. It was partially successful. But in this case as time has gone on the disease has shown fresh virulence, and the leader is leading on rapidly toward the apostasy. This is more striking in this case than in the other movements, though in the Bethesda movement there was a terrible and blinding power of Satan, from which many through grace were recovered, and many were in a measure freed, though they never abandoned the wrong ground. The general character of these things would make us very careful about receiving those continuing in such a fellowship. I confess I feel it to be different from receiving from a sect whose creed involves no fundamental error. I do not look upon the sects as a work of the enemy, although the enemy has sought to corrupt them. The National bodies resulted from the first effort to get away from Rome. God wrought but the wisdom of man got mixed up with His work, so that it stopped short. The movement of the last century was again a work of God. But now through human failure the enemy got in and all these retrograde movements are the result of his work, though God may have set a limit to the enemy’s power and for the sake of His people in these false positions, preserved much of His truth for their benefit. But the general tendency of the day is toward apostasy. I see a tremendous power of Satan leading along many lines toward that goal the Raven movement one of the worst, and leading surely to that end — Higher Criticism one of the worst among the sects. And there are many others.
As to proof of evil having got in among “Open Brethren,” because the door is left open, I do not think there is much difficulty. We know how it was fifty years ago. And I do not think there is any doubt that some 30 years ago they received Annihilationists. Those holding Annihilation became so bad that afterward, they, at least generally, closed their doors against them. But they were received. I am not sufficiently acquainted with them and their writings to speak of their present state. But I think you are aware that in general each local assembly among them is independent of the others. The principle of independency prevails a good deal as among Baptists.
At the same time I believe there are many local meetings of “Open Brethren” which keep themselves free from the presence of evil doctrine. But the serious thing is, they adopted a false principle in 1848, which they have never recalled.
Manner of Receiving from System and the Question of One Absenting Himself from The Lord’s Table, With an Appended “Memorandum of A. G.”