I fully recognize that there was an organization in apostolic and scriptural times, but affirm that what exists now is not the scriptural organization at all, but mere human invention, each sect arranging itself according to its own convenience, so that, as an external body, the Church is ruined; and though much may be enjoyed of what belongs to the Church, I believe from scripture that the ruin is without remedy; that the professing church will be cut off. I believe that there is an external professing Christendom, holding a most important and responsible place, and which will be judged and cut off for its unfaithfulness.
The true body of Christ is not that. It is composed of those who are united to Christ by the Holy Ghost, who, when the professing church is cut off, will have their place with Him in heaven. What is it that confounds these two things when it says, “Baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven?” But the Church as we find it in scripture was, externally, one united organized body; that is, Christians were one set of people, known as such on earth; and elders were locally appointed to guide and oversee, at any rate among the Gentile churches, for any formal appointment is not so clear among the Jews. But there was only one Church, one assembly as a whole; and in each place one body with its elders, God's Church in the place; and only one really in the whole world, visibly, externally one. If Paul in his day had addressed an epistle to the assembly of God which is at, there would have been no question as to who would have received it. If he addressed one now, there is no such body to get it. It must go to the dead letter office. Membership of a church is a thing unknown to scripture: what scripture speaks of is a member of Christ, as of one body, a hand, an eye, &c.
It is not that there was no organization at that time. There was, but it was not a number of voluntary self-constituted sects as now. God's organization is lost in the world, supplanted for centuries by Popery. Men have escaped from the horrors of this, each in his own direction: first, in national churches formed by the civil magistrate—a thing unknown till the Reformation; and then, when this was judged unscriptural, diverging into countless sects, each organizing itself in its own way, and having its own members. This kind of organization, which is wholly contradictory of the scriptural one, is what we reject, and we do not pretend to begin and found the Church over again, but believe that scripture gives us full guidance in these last and perilous days, for the position which the general ruin—fully prophesied of in the New Testament—has brought us into, There are saints scattered in all denominations holding the faith of God's elect. But Christ gave Himself to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. Why are they scattered now? They were to be one that the world might believe. Now they are the scorn of men for their divisions. The Church, as responsible on earth, is in ruins. Its organizations, for there are many, are not God's. Paul could not anywhere call for the elders of the Church, and say to them, “The flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.” Where that exists, I will joyfully fly to submit myself to it. I will not refer to Acts 2 and iv. to show how fearfully we are departed from our first estate, solemn as the testimony is.
When the Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost He formed the Church into one body. This, we know from the Acts, was the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost. And we learn from 1 Cor. 12 that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body. Now that this body was a public manifested external perfectly united body is manifest from the chapter. One could not say to the other, I have no need of thee; if one member suffered, all did; if one was honored, all rejoiced. The various gifts were various members of this body, the Holy Ghost distributing to every man severally as He would; and there were diversities of administrations, but one Lord. The gifts were set in the Church (the whole body). There were gifts of healing, and tongues, and interpreters of tongues. All this is on earth; it has no sense at all save as applied to the Church on earth. Individuals might pass out, as soldiers who had served their time, others be recruited into it; but it remained the army—the one Church on earth, by one uniting Spirit; the body of Christ as manifested on earth, with apostles, prophets, helps, governments, healings, tongues, in it as a whole, given as the Holy Ghost willed. This is incontrovertible. Whatever may have become of it afterward, this was God's institution, the one manifested body, with its various gifts or members.
If I am told, It will be perfect as the body of Christ in heaven. Be it so; I bless God for it. I believe the end of Eph. 1 shows that it is to be so. But that does not set aside 1 Cor. 12, that it was established as one, known, visible body on earth. If I am told on the other hand, That did not last, it was but a momentary expression of power which passed away: although, as to external unity, this is hardly true until the middle of the third century, when the Novatians sprang up through the dreadful corruptions of the professing body, admitted and described by Cyprian, yet substantially I do not deny it. The apostle says that the mystery of iniquity did already work (2 Thess. 2.); that all sought their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. (Phil. 2) He tells us (Acts 20) that after his decease grievous wolves would enter in, not sparing the flock; and that from within also perverse men would arise to draw away the disciples after them. As long as apostolic energy remained, though the evil was there, it was met and restrained; but after that was gone, after his decease, the evil would break out and in; for he knows no apostolic succession, but that his absence would open the door to the activity of evil. And he tells us prophetically that in the last days perilous times would come—there would be a form of godliness, denying the power thereof: from such he who had an ear to hear was to turn away. But 1 Cor. 12 fully describes the original constitution of the Church as the body of Christ on the earth, God's constitution. If that has passed away, then God's orderly constitution of the body of Christ on earth has passed away through the sin of man. The wolf has come and scattered the sheep, because the shepherds were hirelings. Let no saint fear because of this, for no man can pluck them out of the great Shepherd's hand: but the sheep have been scattered, viewed as a flock. We forget that we have passed through the dark ages of Popery, the corruptest and foulest evil under the name of His Church that ever God's holy eye rested on.
But who can say that we are arrived at the last time? The Apostle John can. Already, he says, there are many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. So Peter: “The time is come that judgment should begin at the house of God.” Jude tells us he was compelled to write of the evil already crept in, the very persons as a class that would be judged by Christ as corrupters and adversaries when He appeared. In the seven churches we find Christ judging the state into which the churches had got. Has the Church improved since? Let the dark ages tell the tale, and divided infidel bewildered Protestantism! Nor let the Christian be astonished that the failure began so soon. It has been always so. God's patient love has borne and saved, yea known seven thousand, that one who was faithful enough to go to heaven without death could not find; but the external state of things was under the corruption of evil, and the time come for judgment. The first thing we read of man, after his being placed in paradise, is his fall: no child was born to an innocent Adam. The first thing we read after Noah's altar of thanksgiving is his being drunk. The reins of government entrusted to him were loosed, and scandal and shame and the curse came in. The first thing we have after God spoke out of the midst of the fire to Israel, before Moses came down, is that Israel made the golden calf. The written law never reached man in its own simple character: he had broken it already. The tables were smashed at the foot of the mountain and never came into the camp! How could they come beside a golden calf? The first day of service after their consecration the sons of Aaron offered strange fire, and Aaron never went into the holiest in his robes of glory and beauty! (See Lev. 16) The first son of David turned to idolatry, and the kingdom was ruined. The Gentile king, to whom power was transferred, made his golden image, and got a beast's heart; and the whole times of the Gentiles was characterized by this.
I doubt not that all pictured here—man, law, priesthood, son of David, rising to reign over the Gentiles—will be, or is in some measure, accomplished in the second Adam, the Christ; but that is another matter, most interesting, but which I cannot follow here. As entrusted to man's responsibility, everything set up by God has failed; that is, man has failed in it and failed immediately. The Church as the body of Christ on earth is not an exception; and if in John's time there were many antichrists so that they knew it was the last time, and if Peter declares that the time was come for judgment to begin at the house of God, and Paul that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, it was nothing new; it was the sad course of man with everything God had entrusted to him. The first man is the failing man. But that does not alter the fact that God made man upright, nor that the Church as the body of Christ was set up in unity, with all the gifts needed by it, and suited to its good and prosperity, as 1 Cor. 12. bears witness, and that it has sunk down into Popery, divisions, and infidelity. No so-called church can pretend to be the body of Christ now. The one universal Church as described in scripture was then. They have no pretensions to be an unfallen body.
Remark, though we shall come to ministry just now, that in the very full list of gifts for the ministration of all blessing in the body, given in the chapter referred to, neither bishops nor deacons appear. Nor do they in Eph. 4, where the gifts for the permanent edification of the body and perfecting of the saints are spoken of; but of this anon. The Church was established as the body of Christ, one in the earth: no such body or unity can be found now. It is in ruin.
But the Church thus formed by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven has another character in scripture—the house or temple of God. And this is presented in a twofold way, which I beg my reader to remark: one infallibly secure—Christ's own work not yet finished; the other connected with man's responsibility—a present thing on earth.
See what the word of God says on the subject. “Thou art Peter [a stone], and on this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Here we have Christ building, and no power of Satan shall hinder His building it up to completion. In this building Christ is the builder, and in the work no human instrumentality is ever spoken of. Peter tells us, “Unto whom coming, as unto a living stone, ye also as living stones are built up.” Men may minister the word, but the work is Christ's (man disappears); “unto whom coming ye are built up.” The work of building is not man's, and the building is not finished yet. Living stones may be added from day to day till the top-stone is laid on. This in a certain sense is invisible, an individual work to produce a temple at the end. So Paul: “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” It grows up by grace—it is not finished. The apostles and prophets of the New Testament were laid as the foundation, Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone. The apostles are stones, not workmen.
But in 1 Cor. 3 we have another aspect of the house “As a wise master-builder,” says the apostle, “I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon; but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon.” Here man is builder, and man's responsibility immediately comes in. We have a visible external building: “Ye are God's building;” but, though such, man was the builder, and he might build in gold, silver, precious stones. All well; but he might build in wood, hay, stubble, and his work be good for nothing, and be all burnt up and destroyed. Three cases are supposed here. The first where the builder and his work are good: both of course are owned. Secondly, where the workman is true, but the work bad: he is saved and his work destroyed. Thirdly, there is a corrupter: he is destroyed himself, by God, as evil. Here I have not all perfect, fitly framed together, growing to an holy temple, Christ being the builder; but men the builders, and a present building seen on earth, called God's building, but liable to have all sorts of stuff built in, yea, to be corrupted by those who intend evil. Has nothing of this happened? I do not doubt Christ will have in the end His holy temple; that what He builds will never be thrown down, but grow to an holy temple; that it is in this character as invisible—not Church, indeed, as a present ordered thing, for it is not yet complete, but a work to form it such going on, the living stones added—growing up, in spite of the gates of hell, to be a holy temple, I do not deny. In that temple I trust I am, by grace, a stone, and I trust our critics are too.
But what we have to deal with responsibly—what occupies us now—is what man has built; not the invisible Church which Christ builds (that is sure to be perfect); but what men, since Paul the wise master-builder, have built or even corrupted, what you are who call yourselves the Church of England, or the Presbyterians, or the Independents, or the Wesleyans, or the Baptists, who are all very visible indeed. Is your building such as a responsible man down here can own? I do not doubt for a moment there are living stones in all of them, whom Christ will have in His temple, and has placed there already—beloved brethren, whom I own cordially and joyfully as such; members of that Church which Christ loved, and for which He gave Himself, and whom, as part of it, He will present to Himself glorious. I rejoice with all my heart to think so, and am assured it is so. But I do distinguish between you and what Christ is building for final presentation to Himself; and my responsibility attaches, as to present church questions, not to my relationship to the invisible Church, but how far the word permits me to own you, and the various sects which have split off from you, who are not, and do not pretend to be, that invisible Church.
And here another part of scripture comes in. If corruption has set in, as we have seen it had in the apostles' days, and if the state of the Church has to be judged, and every one that has an ear is to hear what the Spirit says to him, have we no scriptural directions for such a time? We have. 2 Timothy treats of this time of confusion and evil, as 1 Timothy of the order of the visible Church. In 2 Tim. 2 I read, “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.” This supposes, in a great measure, at any rate, that the true Church, the members of Christ, are invisible. The Lord knows them. It was not so originally. In the beginning, “the Lord added to the church [the assembly] such as should be saved.” They are publicly manifested as added to the Christian Church, the assembly at Jerusalem. Now we read, “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” We admit, then, the invisibility of, at any rate, many members of Christ. The Lord knows them. But is that all? No, we have to do with the visible profession, and the Spirit of God continues, “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” Whatever is iniquity I must depart from, and surely not least in the house of God. That is the responsible side of the seal. With the Lord's knowing them that are His I can no further meddle than to bow to it as a truth. But the second part directs me as to my path in the visible Church—those who name the name of the Lord—I am to depart from iniquity. But there is, further, what I may call ecclesiastical direction. In a great house I am to expect vessels to dishonor, and I am to purge myself from them, that I may be a vessel to honor, fit for the Master's use. I am to make the difference in the great house between one vessel and another, and follow faith, charity, patience, with those who call upon the name of the Lord out of a pure heart. Thus, when the Church is become like a great house, I am to act individually, as to avoiding evil, and seek the pure in heart to walk with them. And, in the third chapter, where there is the form of piety, denying the power, I am told “from such turn away.”
In vain you tell me I am not to judge. I am called on to hear what the Spirit says to the churches, bound to depart from iniquity, bound to purge myself from the evil vessels, bound to turn away from the form of piety in the professing body where the power is not. And though I admit that judging individual motives is condemned, yet I must judge evil for my own walk, or I cannot turn away from it. If Popery is evil, I turn away; I do not judge all that are in it; I dare say some may go to heaven. I do not doubt many will from Protestant sects; but if they are unscriptural, I turn away from them.
But it is really a very evil principle to say, in an absolute way, we cannot know who are Christians. Many we may not know from the darkness and confusion which exists, and we must leave it to the judgment of God who does; but to preclude knowing any as such is a disastrous principle, because I cannot love as my brethren those whom I do not recognize as such. “By this,” says the Lord, “shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” And they tell me I cannot know who are to be thus loved! If so, the testing proof of being Christ's disciple is gone. Where would family affection be, if we were to tell our children they could not tell who were their brothers and sisters? But this in itself shows the total difference between the present state of things and the apostolic state sanctioned of God. There, love of the brethren, as a distinct set of people, is given as a test of Christianity (see John's epistles), as much as practical obedience and righteousness. By this “we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” (1 John 3:1414We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. (1 John 3:14), so 10 and 16.) “He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” It was not all the world, but a known set of people. An epistle is commanded to “be read to all the holy brethren.” They were to greet one another with a holy kiss. So “all the saints salute you.”
False brethren soon crept in unawares; but there were true ones among whom to creep unawares. Some apostatized and left also, that it might be made manifest they were not all of its. They were gathered in every place into an assembly, so that they could put a wicked person out from among them. No one can read the New Testament without seeing that these were a well-known, distinct class of persons, known to each other, known as brethren; and he who belonged to them in one place, belonged to them in all—took a letter of commendation as such if he went where he was unknown; among whom, as contrasted with the world, brotherly love was to continue. To say we cannot know each other, even if some are hidden, is to deny all the Christian affections to which we are bound, and to say that the whole condition of Christianity has entirely and fatally changed. There was a company of people, “their own company,” who met as a united body in the whole world, believers in Christ, though false brethren might creep in. The internal power of their unity was the Holy Ghost; it was the unity of the Spirit—one Spirit and one body. The symbol and external center of unity was the Lord's Supper: we are all one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. (1 Cor. 10)
Now what is the position of the English Establishment, Dissenters, and the so-called Plymouth Brethren as to this? An assailant says the two former take people on their profession, and that be does not know an instance where a discovered adulterer or fraudulent person has been permitted to go. But this is a very false representation of the theory of the English Establishment. They do—what they accuse the Brethren of—confound the external professing body and the invisible Church in the worst way. They teach (and so does even the colonial system, though circumstances modify the state of things), that “in baptism I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” These members of Christ, who have received, we are told, remission of sins by spiritual regeneration, are to be brought by their godfathers and godmothers to the bishop to be confirmed, so soon as they can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and have learned what is briefly set forth in the Church Catechism. That is, they are members of Christ and children of God by baptism, and, as such, being confirmed, they are to take the Lord's Supper. They are members of Christ by baptism to start with, when they know nothing about it, and are carried on to the sacrament when they have had adequate instruction. And in theory all the population are supposed to belong to it, passed over to it at the Reformation from Popery, for a long time were forced to be of it, and if they are not, it is by their own act, and reckoned to be in schism and dissent. The way of being a member of Christ is not by faith and the Holy Ghost, not by profession, but by a sacrament!
To talk of discovered adulterers, feeble and delicate as to evil as is such a precaution, is nothing to the purpose. They are made members of Christ, children of God, members of what is called the Church of England, not by faith as scripture teaches as to being a child of God, not by the baptism of the Holy Ghost as scripture teaches as to members of Christ, but by a sacrament. Discovered or undiscovered, they are members of Christ without any professed faith of their own. The truth is, all the reformers held baptismal regeneration (falsely so called, for regeneration is not so used in scripture)—English, Lutheran, Presbyterians, much as the last kick against the proofs of it, which are perfectly clear both in Calvin and their own symbolical books. Scottish, Dutch, and others, all have the doctrine in their documents. The only difference is that the Presbyterians hold that the invisible grace is not so absolutely tied to the sign as to be true of any but the elect. But this only proves the more they do hold it to be so conferred where it is effectual. Luther insists on it for all in his catechism, and the English one in the worst terms possible.
Further, as distinguished from this, the gathering companies of believers is nothing new. This all Dissenters profess to do. They may have thrown themselves into the world and politics more rabidly than the Establishment, and in a large measure fallen into rationalism; but they profess to make churches of believers (unless we except the Wesleyans, who have a peculiar polity of their own). But they make churches to be voluntary associations, of which so-called churches those who associate are members—a thing wholly unknown to scripture. A member of a church is a thing unknown to scripture. All Christians are members of Christ, and there can be no other membership. We, all who have the Spirit of Christ, are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Baptism even as a figure has nothing to do with giving life, or membership. It is baptism to the death of Christ for one previously a child of sinful Adam. The Lord's supper is (besides other precious truths) the expression of the unity of the body of Christ. Every saint is a member of that. This is the ground “Brethren” meet on, supposing of course that the person is not justly subject to discipline. The Establishment makes all the nation (if it can) members of Christ by baptism when infants. Dissenters make members of churches by voluntary association with various particular conditions.
“Brethren” recognize the one body of Christ formed by the Holy Ghost, and meet to break bread on that ground, owning no membership but that of Christ, believing that there are many in all sects who hold the doctrine of Christ, but that they meet, the national churches by a sacramental process for all the world, the Dissenters as voluntary members of particular churches formed by themselves; neither of which systems is in scripture. “Brethren” do not confound the outward professing church and that which Christ will present to Himself: the former will be judged and cut off, the latter be with Christ in heaven. But they see in scripture one recognized body on the earth. They see all to be in ruins; that on the principles of existing professing bodies, they must continue in the Establishment, which is false in all its principles, or join one sect and not be of another—be a member of it, which is not in scripture: that the state of things is a state of ruin, but that God has provided for it in His word; and that they can meet on the ground of the unity of the body of Christ, if only two or three, and find Christ in their midst according to His promise; glad to see any child of God who is walking godlily, who calls on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart. They cannot compel unity, but they can act on it. God alone, they well know, by making Christians unworldly and Christ precious and all to them, can bring it about.