MY DEAR BROTHER,
I see what you say about the difference of our views about the gathering of the Saints of God for worship and the Lord's Supper. I did not know that you professed to gather as saints at all in Sweden, as entirely separate from the religious world; for, when you gather for the breaking of bread, is it not as members of the " Lutheran Christian Mission," and not, simply, as "members of Christ"? My inability to acknowledge such a gathering of God's people is, that it is, obviously, unscriptural. I do not need to prove this; for your connection with the world, in its religion, shows it. Give up Lutheranism as a system; and, by so doing, you will be (negatively, at least) in circumstances to assemble with all saints, on the scriptural basis of being members of Christ's body: for Scripture says, " cease to do evil," " from such turn away," " depart from iniquity," etc. But, in order to take true scriptural ground, we must have the requisite spiritual state, by the spiritual working of the Holy Ghost; for, unless there be good ground, there cannot be a good crop. If the people you are associated with had in their souls a full knowledge of Christianity in power, then they would leave the " Mission " and take up Christian ground; which, you know, numbers of them are doing as they have their Lutheranism supplanted by Christian truth. Who are responsible for this division of the saints? Not those who make the division, under the necessity of obeying God rather than man: but those who cause it, by taking up a position, and holding to a system of doctrine and church order which are short of the truth. There being no warrant in Scripture either for your position or action, it is imperative on you to give up both. I know that, in a great movement in the souls of men, such as that which has taken place in Sweden, there is need of patience and forbearance: for instruction alone can give them the true doctrine of Scripture for their practical and ecclesiastical guidance. I can also well understand how you, and others who are leaders, should wish to go to work cautiously in introducing the teaching of the Word on subjects hitherto unknown, as the believers are able to bear it; but I grieve to think that you should unwittingly promote division among the saints, by taking up, and advocating as right, a principle of gathering and a place of gathering, which necessarily make those so gathered a divisive body, and thus prevent those whose minds are formed and whose conduct is guided by Holy Scripture, from assembling with you. The Holy Ghost is the sole guide in His Word. He has given there what is right, and this decides the matter for us all, so that we are not dependent upon the views and thoughts of men. There is such a thing as the truth, and this is what we read in God's Word and are guided by, without any reasoning of our own. And, if we can act for God, on the warrant of God's truth, and thereby take up an unassailable position, why should we vex ourselves and our fellow-Christians, and grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by acting independently of Scripture and according to the dictation of our own wills? No well-taught conscientious child of God can have either spiritual or ecclesiastical rest unless he does the whole known will of God as to individual or corporate position. As a matter of individual godliness, one would never think of its being left to our personal option whether we should obey the injunction," Let him that stole, steal no more," yet people think they may do as they please as to obeying the ecclesiastical precept, to "Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called... using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: there is one body and one Spirit;" not taking note of the fact that both exhortations are found in the same chapter and under the same warrant of the Spirit, and that the first part of the chapter is occupied with ecclesiastical godliness, and the second part with personal and social godliness; and that the one is just as binding on all saints as the other:
Were we all possessed of nothing but the truth of God, and subject to the will of God, we should be all together keeping the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. You, as well as we, have had to give up many hereditary and traditionary ideas because we found no warrant for them in God's Word; and all our hereditary church views, being totally wrong, must also be abandoned. For, as to their doctrines and ecclesiastical systems, there are no churches, in any country in Christendom, scriptural; therefore, wise men, and men of dependent, lowly, and obedient minds, will forsake them, and accept God's way of gathering to the name of Jesus Christ alone. There has been for nearly half a century a growing dissatisfaction among Christians with the disorganized and divided state of the Christian profession, and various efforts have been made to obtain, at least, some show of the real unity of the body of Christ.
Before we give the true unity which God made and we have been told to keep, let us look a little at the various substitutes for it which men have adopted in ancient and modern times.
That which, if anything, represents historical Christianity -the Western Church, with Rome for its center, is gathered into its external unity around the Pope as Christ's alleged vicegerent on earth. This even in outward form goes no farther than the unity of its own religious profession, as all churches err by doing. It is not based on the first set of unities, one body and one Spirit and one hope of our calling; but upon " One Lord, one faith, and one baptism."
The Greek Church, which embraces not only the population of Greece proper but of Russia and a considerable part of Turkey, holding about a hundred millions of souls in its circle,
is gathered around a Patriarch and governed by the world, and has been already judged by the Mohammedan power, and is held in bondage by the Russian Emperor, who is ostensibly its head and ruler. It is not likely that the fallen Eastern Church will ever emerge from its present identification with the world, and. act on its own responsibility, as is done by the Church of Rome.
Established churches have been formed in many Protestant countries by the State assuming the power of the church which was taken from the Pope; and the principle on which they proceed is, that the nation and the church are co-extensive, and hence the clergy are the state-appointed officials for supplying the whole population with ordinances, and there is no gathering together of the saints: indeed, this would be utterly incompatible with the idea of a state church. This is a return in principle to the system of ordinances, out of which the church sprang on the descent of the Holy Ghost and the formation of the church of God. In such circumstances the keeping of the unity of the Spirit is an absolute impossibility.
Episcopal churches are formed on the assumption that there are three orders of church officers-bishops, priests, and deacons; and their system is hierarchical. But there is nothing plainer than that there is no trace of this system in the Holy Scriptures; for there elders and bishops are identical; and there is no diocesan bishop such as they now have. The apostles knew no such thing as a prelate in the church-neither instituted them nor recognized them: nor do the Scriptures refer to any such functionary as a diocesan bishop. No one denies that at the end of the second century the episcopal system, not the diocesan, but one superior president of the principal local churches, was generally established. But it was not established in apostolic times by God, when the government of the Church was settled. There is no warrant for it in Scripture. But had it been otherwise, Scripture assures us that the ground, center, and principle of assembling, are other than in connection with an episcopal hierarchy.
5. The Presbyterian system adheres to the scriptural order of only two classes of ecclesiastical officers-elders and deacons: but they have neither, as the apostolic church had them. They overlook the fact that elders were never established save by the apostles or their envoys; and the presbytery never appointed them. But not heeding this fatal bar to their proceedings that they have neither warrant nor power to establish elders, they do so, and make the work of their own hands the foundation for their gathering as a church. Even if they had been in the days of the apostles when the Presbyterian care-taking of the church was in full force by divine warrant and apostolic appointment, they would have learned, as all saints may now do, that church union was not secured by external government, but by a power entirely outside of church government. It might expose their false ground of unity to ask where was the unity of the church in assemblies where no elders were established? The assemblies were owned by Paul and Barnabas to be true churches without elders; and they, and not the churches, "established elders in every church." But the church being there before the elders shows clearly that the church must have assembled on some other basis than that of having elders. This principle of gathering of theirs seems to have been very little successful in' the past; and feeling this, they are now holding Pan-Presbyterian councils at stated intervals, to try to re-unite the scattered fragments of their body; and as many as forty-four differing churches sent up representatives to the council to demonstrate their ecclesiastical unity This shows total disorganization.
6. Congregationalists or Independents meet on the ground of the absolute independence of the local assembly. This is the complete negation of the unity of the body. They make life in Christ their professed ground of gathering,. but they appoint ministers and deacons, and there is neither liberty of ministry nor of worship. Independency -means that each church judges for itself independently of another. In every respect this system is wholly unscriptural. The church is not a voluntary system.
It is not formed (or rather unformed) of a number of independent bodies or assemblies, each acting for itself. There is not a trace of such independency and disorder in the Word of God.
The Baptists make adult baptism by immersion their principle of separation from other Christians, and of assembling themselves together. This principle is, on the face of it, unscriptural, for (though none should eat the Lord's supper who are not baptized) Christ is the center of Christian gathering and not an ordinance, and the only ground of gathering is the unity of the body of Christ; not the merely mechanical thing of assembling around an ordinance, although the participation in the Lord's supper is that by which the oneness of the Church is expressed. "For we, the many, are one bread, one body " (1 Cor. 10:1717For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17)), for we are all partakers of that one bread.
The Methodists make no pretensions to being on a church ground at all, only " a society of penitent sinners fleeing from the wrath to come," and their creed is very much the Arminian doctrines of John Wesley, which are generally a reflection of the doctrines of Lutheranism. They are characterized by intense earnestness and zeal for the conversion of souls; but, as a rule, their converts know neither redemption nor peace with God; and to them the knowledge of the Church of God is simply an impossibility; and, as already remarked, they do not profess to be on church ground. They are like the Lutherans of the mission- houses in Sweden, who do not give up a nominal connection with the established church, yet, for their own convenience, have the Lord's supper by themselves. The Methodists of to-day are just what the mission-house believers will become, unless they embrace and act upon the truth that "there is one body and one Spirit."
Besides the above—mentioned, there is a multitude of sects assembling on bits of truth or falsehood, or ranged under different leaders' names, such as Irvingites, Campbellites, Swedenborgians, Mennonites, Mormonites, etc. All this is simply the will of man and not the Word of God.
Temporary 'unions are also formed by Christians for
special purposes, on the principle of sinking their differences, and enjoying each other's society for some days. They have their Bible and missionary societies, their Christian conferences, and the Evangelical Alliance. This last was formed nearly forty years ago. It is a great international society of the heavier portion of the evangelical world, who yet have a notion that some manifestation should be given that all Christians are one in Christ. The more spiritual and evangelistic part of the Evangelicals have their Christian Conferences, where they meet together for a few days on the ground of sinking their differences, and have preaching, prayer, and sometimes the Lord's supper. But, even in both, the clergy never relax their grasp; and indeed, the owning of a clergy and ordinances is the real ground of their assembling; for those who own neither are excluded. The clergy always assert their place of usurpation as dispensers of the supper at such gatherings; and in all the church-making of the age they have the place of pre-eminence and supreme control. They are the cause of the ruin; and they perpetuate it (Acts 20:3030Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:30)).
13. But the divine unity is different from all these unions of men by which Christendom has been disfigured and ruined, and lies before the eyes of mankind as a wreck, to the dishonor of Christ and the disgrace of all the saints who sanction it All man's churches are distinctly opposed to God's church, and in defiance of the plain word of God-" there is one body." This does not mean many bodies. Man's error lies in making churches instead of owning the church God has made. He has a unity of the Spirit He enjoins us to keep. He has united Christians in one body in Christ by His sovereign grace, and in virtue of
the power of the Holy Ghost, without consulting with them and without availing Himself of their co-operation. He has baptized all saints into one body, and exhorted them, not to make unions,
but, to act so as to maintain "THE UNITY or THE SPIRIT in the bond of peace." And that there may be no mistake he points it out in the words which follow-" There is ONE BODY and ONE
SPIRIT, even as ye are called in ONE HOPE of your calling." And when saints assemble on this divine ground, they have only to worship God the Father and show their oneness in Christ by breaking bread together in remembrance of Him at His table; "for we, the many, are one bread, one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread" (1 Cor. 10:1717For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17)). This is the Spirit's way of giving an outward expression of our unity; and He will admit of none other. The scriptural principles of gathering for worship and the breaking of bread require only faith, a mind subject to the Spirit, and a heart for Christ, to own them and act upon them in maintaining the unity of the Spirit.
(1.) On account of the holiness of God, the necessary principle of gathering to Christ is separation from evil. Christ's redemption takes the saints out of the ruin of themselves as well as of their sins, having delivered them from this present evil world. God sets them in the Spirit as those who are Christ's in the midst of evil, but separated from it as He was. " They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." " Cease to do evil." "Let him that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." God's essential character demands separation from evil, for " God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth " (1 John, 1: 5, 8). To think of this were to belie the character of God. If there is to be fellowship with God, and, if connected with the Holy One of God, the heavenly Christ, there must be separation from evil. This principle working in men's consciences at Pentecost, the Holy Ghost formed a Christian unity in the midst of evil. The Reformation from Popery, if not some of the sects of Christendom, owe their existence in measure to this principle. But although they came out of gross evil they came far short of the unity of the Spirit. Not one church ever contemplated "the body of Christ."
(2.) The only scriptural basis of gathering to Christ is that " there is one body and one Spirit." Although all the constituent members of this body do not assemble, the Spirit remains, and as many as see the truth, and have faith to act upon it, may scripturally meet to eat the Lord's Supper and worship. All Christians being already members of this " one body " are all one thing, and do not require to wait until something be formed. The body is there; and if there is faith to own it, and dependence on the Spirit, they may manifest their oneness by eating together the Lord's Supper at His table, and worshipping His God and Father. This is the privilege and duty of every saint on earth: and it is sin against Christ not to do this.
The power of gathering, as well as of unity, is grace as revealed in Christ and His cross, which manifested God in His nature, and " God is love;" and in His character, for " God is light." Love, as grace in God revealed in Christ, alone gathers; Christ lifted up draws all men to Him. And He gave Himself to gather together in one the children of God scattered abroad. The Holy Ghost works in souls through the grace of God revealed in His nature in Christ, and thus brings them into oneness with Him. " By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."
The divine center of gathering is Christ Himself. God was in Christ; God in His nature was revealed in Christ; Christ in His person has revealed Him; in His Cross glorified Him; and vindicated Him in His character. Having died to clear God's name and for our sins, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. God has wrought from His own nature according to His counsel in Christ; and it is by the revelation of perfect love- Himself acting in grace towards us, clearing us for God's presence, giving us a new nature too, and relationship as children of God; we cleave to Christ, our deliverer, where He is. Christ by His death has died to sin, and now liveth to God: and we are attached to Him by the Spirit in the heavenly places where He is-the world and sin left out-that we too might live together, with Him. The sphere where we are gathered, in spirit, is the Father's presence in love and light. We have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. The glorious Man, the Son of God, in the Father's presence, is the One to whom we are gathered, and the One in whom we are blessed with every blessing in that heavenly sphere of light and love.
As this point is of importance, we press it a little more precisely as Scripture teaches it. There must be an intrinsic power of union holding the body together to a center, as well as a power separating from evil to form it; and this center found, it denies all others. The center of unity must be a sole and unrivaled center. The Christian has not long to inquire here. It is Christ. The object of the Divine counsel-the manifestation of God Himself-the one only vessel of mediatorial power, entitled to unite creation as He by whom and for whom all things were made; and the Church as its redeemer, its head, its glory, and its life. And there is this double headship, He is head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. This will be accomplished in its day-for the present we take up the intermediate period, the unity of the Church itself, and its unity in the midst of evil. Now there can be no moral power which can unite away from evil but Christ. He alone, as perfect grace and truth, detects all the evil which separates from God, and from which God separates. He alone can, of God, be the attractive center which draws together to Himself all on whom God so acts. God will own no other-there is no other to whom the testimony could be borne, who is morally adequate to concentrate every affection which is of God and towards God. Redemption itself, too, makes this necessary and evident; there can be but one Redeemer, one in whom a ransomed heart can be given, as well as where a divinely quickened heart can give all its affections, the center and revelation of the Father's love. He, too, is the center of power to do it. In Him all the fullness dwells. Love, and God is love, is known in Him. He is the wisdom of God and the power of God. And yet more than this, He is the separating power of attraction, because He is the manifestation of all this, and the fulfiller of it in the midst of evil; and that is what we poor miserable ones want who are in it, and it is what, if we may so speak, God wants for His separating glory in the midst of evil. Christ sacrificed Himself to set up God in separating love in the midst of evil. There was more than this, a wider scope in this work, but I speak in reference to my present subject now. Thus Christ becomes not only the center of unity to the universe in His glorious title of power, but, as the manifester of God, the one owned and set up of the Father, and attractor of man. He becomes a peculiar and special center of divine affections in man, round which they are gathered as the sole divine center of unity. For indeed, as the center, necessarily the sole center, "He that gathereth not with me scattereth." And such, as to this point, was the object even, and power of His death. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto. me." And more especially, He gave Himself not for that nation only, but that He might gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. But here again we find this separation of a peculiar people. He gave Himself for us, that he might purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. He was the very pattern of the divine life in man, separate from the evil by which it was universally surrounded. He was the friend of publicans and sinners, piping in grace to men by familiar and tender love; but He was ever the separate man. And so He is as the center and high -priest of the Church. " Such an high- priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners"-and, it is added, "made higher than the heavens." Here, in passing, we may remark that the center and subject of this unity then is heavenly. By His death He broke down the middle wall of partition, and made both one, and reconciled both in one body unto God-making peace. Hence it is as lifted up, and finally as made higher than the heavens, that He becomes the center and sole object of unity.
From what we have seen, it is evident that the Lord Jesus Christ on high is the object round which the Church clusters in unity. He is its head and center. This is the character of their unity, and of their separation from evil, from sinners. Yet they were not to be taken out of the world, but kept from the evil, and sanctified through the truth; Jesus having set Himself thus apart to this end. Hence, as well as for the public display of the power and glory of the Son of man, the Holy Ghost was sent down to identify the called ones with their heavenly Head, and to separate them from the world in which they were to remain; and the Holy Spirit became thus the center and power down here of the unity of the Church in Christ's name-Christ having broken down the middle wall of partition, reconciling both in one body by the cross. The saints, thus gathered in one, became the habitation of God through the Spirit. The Holy Ghost Himself became the power and center of unity, but in the name of Jesus, of a people separated alike from Jew and Gentile, and delivered out of this present evil world into union with their glorious Head.
(5.) The divine bond of unity is the Holy Ghost. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." " There is one body and one Spirit." He is in all, binding all together in Christ; and, dwelling in the assembly, gathers efficiently in love and holiness to Christ; and by His blessed Word, revealing Christ in fullest grace, engages our souls and hearts so fully with Him, that being separated to Him in love and grace, the good in Christ to which we are attached is the great presence to our souls and hearts, and not the evil from which we are separated.
All saints are of the body of Christ, and, when it is practical, gathering in the unity of the Spirit, who dwells in the Church as His habitation, it will be in accordance with the Word of God; for light and darkness, Christ and Belial, cannot be linked together. For practical fellowship then, while the Spirit gathers by love He preserves from evil by holiness; yet He gives us such hold on the good that it is uppermost in our minds and hearts, and evil, as by very necessity of our communion with God, is left. The Spirit who gathers in grace yet maintains in light.
In 1 John 1 we have the manifestation of the eternal life in love and the fellowship of the Father and the Son enjoyed-our joy full; but we have also the message "that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all," and our walk is to be in accordance with this perfect revelation of God in Christ. But the manifestation of God in His nature comes before the message regarding God in His character. Love gathers us into this divine fellowship according to the nature of God: and light maintains us there according to the character of God. Such then are some of the principles of unity and gathering, according to the Scriptures. " If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them."