Darbyism: Its Rise and Development/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
“If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another,” is a word of solemn warning, the truth of which is strikingly illustrated in this portion of the history before us. We turn now from transactions connected with Bethesda in 1848, to contemplate the working of the same principle of late years in the London meetings connected with Mr. Darby and his party, in which will be traced the further development of those ideas, which have already been under review. It would be pleasant to put into the shade those transactions which have been publicly brought before the Church of God, so much to the shame of those concerned; but if a confessed sin has to be covered, and the mantle of love cast over it, sin continued in and unconfessed has to be rebuked before all, that others also may fear. It will not be necessary to enter minutely here into the state of the London meetings alluded to, nor on the character of the means made use of to maintain this discipline among all connected with the Priory and London Bridge meetings, which appear to have exercised an absolute control over all that which concerns the interest of the Darby party. The writings of Mr. Stewart, Mr. Culverhouse, and others, sufficiently disclose the state of things among the meetings with which the writers were themselves mixed up, and of which enough has been already written to satisfy the minds of those unbiassed, of the real evil at work, and of the character of the despotic rule that has been usurped over the Lord’s heritage, for which, however, those who rule and those who submit, are jointly responsible to God. If this centralized rule and discipline, which led the London assemblies to take up the concerns of others, and to investigate the doctrines held and the deeds done by believers at a distance, had not existed, they would have had leisure to have examined their own ways, and the life and conduct of those in immediate fellowship with themselves, and they would not have become a reproach for “gross sin,” and their meetings a disgrace for “ungodly disorder.” It would not have been needful to allude to these things, or to the painful occurrences at those meetings at the Priory and elsewhere, had they been merely temporary exhibitions of the evil that dwells in all those who still carry about with them a body of sin and death, into which every saint and every gathering of saints, in a weak and evil hour may fall; but it is necessary to do so because there is seen in them the natural and necessary development of principles, that the Church of God needs to be warned against, as ultimately subversive of all godliness, and of all rectitude of conscience. Individual acts of evil, while involving those who are guilty of them in the punishment that is due, pass away and often ultimately lead to a restoration in grace, and to a strengthening of the fallen in the ways of holiness and peace; but it is otherwise when a “law” of wickedness becomes dominant, or when a principle of evil takes possession of the mind; it grows, it ripens, it brings forth fruit, and sows itself wider and wider, and in the end becomes a devastating torrent, whose course is marked by the destruction and the misery that it causes. It is said of the ungodly, that sin is established by them by a law, an obligation to evil is laid upon the conscience as a rule of action, and under a terrible delusion does the sinner act, never asking himself the question, “Is there not a lie at my right hand?” Into this the saint may in any matter fall, when wilful blindness (a wilfulness of which God alone is the judge), takes possession of the soul, which produces that “incapacity of conscience,” the thought of which may well make the stoutest tremble; in which, however, God leaves not himself without witness in the fruits and results that follow, which those who will see may see, and for which those who will not, will have to answer in having fallen a prey to a blindness the result of their own self-will. It is this conviction which makes it imperative on all to investigate the principles by which they or others are guided, which, if not of God, will carry their advocates into the committing of acts only often the more evil, because apparently the more spiritually directed; for there is “spiritual wickedness in heavenly places” in more senses than one, and the filthiness of the spirit is all the more filthy in God’s sight, because of the apparent or expressed spirituality with which it is associated.
In these pages it has been sought to dwell particularly on the falsity of certain principles maintained and acted on by many, and these remarks will be directed to pointing out the growth and working of these destructive notions, which have marred so much of the Lord’s work, and brought so much dishonor on his name, and added another to the many sects that already deface the religion of Him who prayed that all His followers might be one; for if the following of any one man ever marked any body of men, which justified their receiving the name of their leader, those to whom allusion is here made, have earned the unenviable claim to be called Darbyites. No sooner is the name of “a body” assumed, and “a corporate action” maintained, outside the limited sphere of the two or three, who are gathered in the name of Jesus; than those, so taking to themselves such corporate responsibilities and powers, become virtually a confederacy, a sect, a body of their own, be the name by which they are called what it may. The leader of the party is never the leader in everything. He points out the way, and those who follow, generally outstep their master, in those particulars which form the peculiar characteristics of his creed and action, and while he leads as to the direction that views and acts take, he is none the less under the leading influence of the current, which it may be, he has caused; and borne along by influences which he can no longer control, he becomes at once the leader and the slave of his own system. Notice of the gradual development of the corporate standing assumed by Mr. Darby has already been taken, but those embryo developments already alluded to, and so painfully brought to light eighteen years ago, have not lain dormant; the seed has become the full corn in the ear, and, as some of the party acknowledge, already “new circumstances need new rules,” and as new ideas develop themselves, new expressions are needed to embody them. “The one assembly of God” is an expression made use of in 1861 as the term whereby to designate those federal gatherings acting in unison with Mr. Darby. It is not an expression used once accidentally, it occurs reiteratedly in the ecclesiastical documents of the party, and hence deserves our consideration. It does not appear with whom this presumptuous title originated, but probably it did not originate with Mr. Darby; for it is not likely, deep and grievous as his departure from God’s principle of Church fellowship has been, that he would have been the first to give currency to an expression which he could not but have been wise enough to perceive, would tell more against the catholicity he claims for his party, than any other that could well have been used ; recalling so powerfully to mind other similar titles assumed by those with whom he would seek no particular connexion, and may henceforth be ranked with “The one Holy and Catholic Church” of Rome, or “The Catholic and Apostolic Church” of the Irvingites. The title as assumed, however, can but give to others a clear insight into the workings of the system—a title, that is treason to those whose names are in the Book of Life; to those who “everywhere call on the name of the Lord, theirs and ours; to those who still remain by the grace of God outside this “one assembly.” Mr. Darby, however, who has all along held the position claimed, endorses the expression, and gives additional meaning to it, when in a letter written a little later, speaking of one excluded from the Darbyite assemblies in London, he writes, “I hold him to be outside the Church of God on earth, being outside what represents it in London.” Beyond the pale of an anti-christian communion no such arrogant assumption was ever made, in open violation of all the blessed statements in the Word concerning the mutual fellowship and responsibilities of the brother hood of the family of God. It has been reserved for Darbyism to develop a system which upon the smallest basis should erect the most tremendous superstrueture—a superstructure which in the intolerance of its claim, and the boldness of its assertion, reminds us of the days of Papal power in the middle ages. How has the humble gathering of the two or three in the name of Jesus been forgotten and set aside, by this new dogma? and instead of it a position taken, which is destructive of everything in Church standing, but the narrowest sectarianism. Can it be believed possible that those who started with the acknowledgment of the individual responsibility of all saints to Christ, should dwindle down into the position here taken, so as to assert that being outside their small assemblies in London, is out side the Church of God upon earth? Is it possible that original principles could be so openly repudiated, and former testimony so entirely forgotten? but so it is, and these progressive steps in ecclesiasticism it is important to notice, as showing how soon one who excommunicated Mr. Newton in 1845 on the ground of clericalism, should fall into an ecclesiasticism, that embodies in itself far more than all that which was to be condemned in another. This dogma, which might almost cast into the shade all the schisms in the Church, which Brethren from the beginning so raised their voices against, is that into which the Darbyites have fallen, with as narrow a sectarianism as any that has gone before it.
As this letter, above alluded to, is of importance, we will give an extract from it here, which we hope all will ponder and read in the light of the Word. It was written to Mr. Spurr, of Sheffield, from the South of France, bearing date Feb. 19th , 1864.
“I understood the breach arose between you and Rotherham by reason of your reception of Goodal. With the main facts of his case I am acquainted, for I took part in what passed, and now allow me to put the case as it stands as to him. I put it merely as a principle. He (or any one else) is rejected in London. The assembly in London have weighed, and I with them, the case, and counted him as either excommunicated or in schism. I put the two cases, for I only speak of the principle. I take part in this act, and hold him to be outside the church of God on earth, being outside (in either case) what represents it in London; I am bound by scripture to count them so. I come to Sheffield; there he breaks bread, and is—in what? Not in the church of God on earth, for he is out of it in London, and there are not two churches on earth, cannot be, so as to be in one and out of another. How can I refuse to eat with him in London and break bread with him in Sheffield? have one conscience for London, and another conscience for Sheffield? It is confusion and disorder. I do not apprehend I am mistaken in saying you received Goodal without having the reasons or motives of the Priory or other brethren in London. If you have had their reasons, the case is only stronger, because you have deliberately condemned the gathering in London and rejected its communion, for he who is outside in London is inside with you.”[1]
From this quotation it will be clearly perceived what the principles of church communion are which are here so broadly stated, in which it is laid down as a rule, that if one rejected in London, is received in Sheffield, the gathering in Sheffield is ipso facto excommunicated also, and thereby the fellowship of that assembly with the church of God on earth is destroyed!! But what if another assembly were to act in the same way towards the assemblies in London, would they be thereby excluded from the church of God on earth, or do they possess, like the See of Rome, a peculiar commission, and an infallible authority? Well may godly hearts tremble and wonder at the open blasphemy of thus using the name of the Spirit of our God to sanction man’s self-will, or his vindictiveness, his mistakes or his follies. The spirit in Diotrophes once cut off the beloved Apostle from the church, a love of pre-eminence had filled his heart, he placed him outside what he might call the church of God on earth (if such folly and wickedness were probable in those days ), to which the Apostle simply says, “If I come I will remember his deeds.” He does not cast him out because he had been rejected himself, he lived in the church in the grace he sought to exhibit as one called to bear witness to the grace of God, and meets the arrogance and sin of another, with the gentleness and meekness of Christ. The apostolic power of binding and loosing has been often assumed by many professing to belong to the church of God, but never were divine principles of truth more subverted, nor higher light more sinned against, than in the claims under consideration. They are not claims put forward as many claims in Christendom have been, by carnal men, ignorant of God and of His truth; but by those who have made the Word their boast, and Christ their theme; henceforth may all learn to cease from man, whether saint or sinner, and trust again in Him alone. But if the organ of light that is within becomes dark, how great is that darkness, and this is again illustrated and proved by the delusion into which those have fallen who were once able and distinguished servants of God. But if light is made to consist in knowledge rather than in holiness, this will ever be the case; for knowledge, at best, is but in part, and that part driven to an extreme, as it ever will be, unless love hold the helm, and holiness guide the vessel, will end in nothing better than the clang of the sounding brass and the tinkling cymbals, pleasant to the ear of the carnal it may be, but hateful to God, and profitless to the Christian’s great end and aim—God Himself and His glory.
The rule here laid down is virtually this, that every act of discipline is the act of the Holy Ghost. Let it be asked, if there is difference of judgment in any cases under consideration, which way does the Spirit side? The majority are not always in the right, and the strongest have not always most of the Spirit. But what if there has come in that incapacity to judge of which Mr. Darby has cautioned so wisely? What if “an incapacity of conscience to discern right and wrong,” has come in upon the rulers of a Church? for that which can befall an individual can befall the many under similar circumstances. What, if this incapacity has come in upon the members of the Priory? What then? What, if, after all, the assumed work of the Spirit of God be the work of men misguided, deluded, deceived? What then? May godly souls who have been associated with perhaps they know not what, pause, while over this awful precipice that lies before them they contemplate the terrible danger to which they are exposed, a danger which will involve, sooner or later, a fanaticism that must lead to the most debasing superstition. But what, if, in the consciences of some, the possibility of the Priory rulers being deceived and misguided, becomes a moral certainty, what are they to do? To remain on such an awful pinnacle of blind infatuation? To remain there and for what? To maintain the figment of a church unity that can end only in ruin? Truly we may say “the church is in ruins” if this be all that holds it together. Reason and faith alike reject this vain, demoralizing prostration of heart and conscience to the supposed inspiration of a Priory meeting. Superstition is not far off when the Word is set aside, and an assumption of the presence of the Spirit made to take its place in any, matter, however small. Superstition is the only hold there can be on the consciences of others to bind them to a rule, in which all the revealed will of God is set aside, and to a course maintained not by a reference to the unerring guide of the blessed Word of God, but to the Spirit’s assumed direction, to which the command applies “Try the Spirits.” And try them by what? By the “It is written,” as uttered by the Son of God in the hour of His temptation.
Before proceeding any further, let us take a glance at this infallible assembly—“the one assembly of God in London”—as in one document the leaders four times style the body corporate, the confederacy to which they belong. In illustration of what we are saying, we will trace out those proceedings in London, which led to the placing of the assembly in Sheffield with which they had been in fellowship, outside the church of God upon earth.” When the assumption is so great, and the result contemplated so tremendous, it will be well to notice the character of the assembly, and the exercise of its powers; for if ever a claim was put forth to the possession of the keys of the kingdom, it is put forth in the power by which saints are locked out of “the church on earth.” In the chain of excommunications that ended in the exclusion of the Sheffield assembly, the first is that of Mr. A. Stewart, who is charged by the Priory leaders with having “grievously violated the Lord’s presence at His table, and the consciences of the saints, by forcing his ministry,” and in “having declared he had nothing to confess.” On the above subject the leaders state “to their brethren of the one assembly of God in London,” that “they can no longer have communion with him at the table of the Lord.” He is in consequence put “outside the church of God on earth.”
On this the Walworth gathering asked of the Priory meeting, “What sin or sins, according to scripture, of an excommunicable character,” he had committed. The reply was, we are told, to the effect that they were ”of a character not needing to be determined by scripture.”[2] This was not satisfactory to godly consciences becoming alive to the principles at work, and they added to this, in that they “in self-will” removed their place of meeting from Walworth to Peckham. The result of these unpleasant questions put, and of the self-will of going to Peckham without permission, was the following communication, that “those associated with the Peckham meeting, cannot be accredited at the Lord’s table till they are humbled for their course.” The saints meeting at Peckham are therefore put outside “the church of God on earth.”
Mr. Goodal, a member of the Peckham meeting, goes to Sheffield. The brethren composing the meeting in that place, considering he had been unrighteously put out of fellowship by the Priory, receive him , and are told as follows: “You have now placed yourselves in the same position as Mr. Goodal, viz: outside the communion of the saints gathered in London.” Thus an assembly of saints in Sheffield is also placed outside “the church of God on earth.”[3]
The godly heart sickens and saddens as it reads and examines the grounds for committing the most solemn act that the church of God can be called on to perform-of excluding from its number one who has sinned. We find “self-will” charged, “consciences violated,” “want of humility,” “the Lord’s presence at the table violated,” but we will ask all who read these London proceedings to judge where the self-will seems most to be—who have the greatest need to be humbled—who have violated the sacred name, presence, and blood of Jesus, and the consciences of the blood-bought people? Who? The excommunicators or the excommunicated? What, we most solemnly ask, is the ground of offence and cause of these wholesale excommunications? There is no false doctrine charged, and those concerned are not even accused of a laxity of discipline, as falsely charged against Bethesda; but there lies at the bottom of all these actings, the same spring, whether the case of Peckham, Sheffield, or Bristol, be considered, and that charge is the one twice given by the Priory rulers connected with these excommunications (pp. 15-30), the charge of “Independency ,” though used by them in a different sense, no doubt. The aim of “The One Assembly” under the leadership of Mr. Darby and his friends is to establish a church authority of their own, of which they are to form the centre; and, in order to maintain it, this wholesale discipline is necessary, and we are told that “to ignore the discipline of the assembly in London,” is “virtually to deny the unity of the body.” These monstrous theories as here explained and acted on, hang together—the ungodly discipline springing out of an unscriptural notion of what the unity of the body of Christ implies.
The Church of God, the one Bride of Christ, is confounded with the thousands of churches that have occupied their places on earth, from whom whenever the life and power of the Spirit is gone, the candlestick is removed, leaving untouched and untarnished the glory of the Lamb’s Wife. The individual assemblies which compose that part of the Church which is militant, be they small or large, are called to live and walk in the power of the grace of the Bride of Christ, which is subject unto Him in all things. The Church of the first -born written in heaven is our ensample in our church capacity and order, standing in direct responsibility to the Church’s Head alone; involving to us here a church responsibility that is limited in its extent, not extending beyond the few gathered together in the name of the Lord in any one place, but unlimited in its loyalty and allegiance to the Head, which never can allow of any interfering power, or any intervening principle; which, if recognized, will be found subversive of His place who is the one Head and the one Centre; for as nothing either ecclesiastical or personal must ever be allowed to come between the soul and Jesus, so must nothing come between the assembly and Jesus; for, if it does, it at once makes the Church the servant of man in the things of God. If there be one thing more remarkable than another in the history of the Apostle Paul, it is the place he occupied towards the churches he planted. He never intrudes between them and their Lord, either in what concerns their individual consciences as saints, or their collective conscience as a church; but associating himself with them, it may be, in a matter of discipline, he says, “When ye are met together with my spirit, deliver such an one to Satan.” Their consciences were not acted on before their judgment had been quickened; they were not forced to accept an apostolic decree that was above their consciences and their discernment, but both were brought by the grace of Christ in the Apostle into healthful happy exercise, and the Church acting with the Apostle, put away that wicked person, who was thenceforth outside the Church in Corinth, and lawfully outside only, because he had fallen into the place of the ungodly, who are outside the gate of the city, for without that city are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie,” and therefore ought to be outside every other assembly; not because man had placed him outside, but because the Holy Ghost had placed him there, and he was therefore outside the Church of God on earth. Such were outside the Church in heaven, and therefore the saints in Corinth acting on that, put from themselves him who occupied that footing; for we are to judge of all by their fruits, leaving the secrets of the hearts to Him who alone can judge them. For discipline, be it ever remembered, must be an act of obedience to Christ, and not the assumption and exercise of authority on the part of the Church. We must bear in mind that our Lord has said, “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them , and they that are great exercise authority upon them ; but it shall not be so among you.” No legislative power has been committed unto the Church; no place of authority whatsoever has been given unto her; her place is the place of subjection, and her discipline must be only an act of simple obedience, and all other becomes Gentile lordship and fleshly authority.
We would remind those concerned in these London proceedings of which we have been writing, that Mr. Wigram and many others left fellowship with Ebrington Street in 1845, although those in fellowship were confessedly Christians, only because “a new ecclesiastical system had been introduced,” and we would ask those who commit themselves to these acts in London, whether or not a new ecclesiastical system and nomenclature has not been introduced among themselves, “opposed to what had been recognized from the beginning.” We are aware that many among themselves at a distance have repudiated this new assumption, but we ask them whether the evil of this new overbearing ecclesiasticism has been judged according to the theory of discipline acknowledged and acted on by them in reference to others; and whether, if true to the actings that they have held up for universal imitation, they ought not to have treated the new church system advocated by the Darby party in London as they treated what they called “a new church system” in Ebrington Street? But in all these matters, the different measure measured out to themselves and to others, is but too painfully manifest.
There is another point in the present exhibition of Darbyism, and that is, the substitution of conscience for the written Word; and this is a matter of vital importance. It seems strange that those who began with the Word as their rule of life and their guide in church order, should in their church actings speak of the “consciences of godly saints violated,” rather than the precepts of the written Word broken. Need brethren in Christ be reminded, that a conscience unguided by, or going beyond the Word, is the worst of all tyrants, the most unprincipled of all guides; yet direct appeal to the Word and to the testimony is often entirely set aside, by the declaration that these are matters in which conscience alone is to be the guide, and acts of discipline as we have seen performed, on charges of which avowedly the Word takes no cognizance whatever. Conscience unguided by the Word, ever has and ever will lead its votaries to ruin. It is as if a pilot were to use a compass in an iron-built ship without the power of adjustment, which influenced by that of which the vessel is com posed, will not more certainly strand it in some unexpected hour, than will the consciences of those who trust to them, strand them on some shore for which they never intended to make sail, and toward which they never dreamt they were hastening. If the compass be wrong, what, though the chart be right; destruction will inevitably follow.
The infidel sets aside the Word of God because his “verifying faculty” cannot receive it; and the Darbyite rejects simple reference to the Word, because “a godly conscience” is to be trusted, the godliness of which the man himself is to be the judge! This may be but the small end of the wedge, but it will sooner or later undermine reverence for the written Word in those who hold it, as certainly as the setting up of the “verifying principle” in the heart of the unbeliever does. The principles are identical. But has this sprung out of the teaching and guidance of one who has so well warned us against the treachery of conscience in the saints? It may be well to ask the question; but truths advocated when their application is to another, are not necessarily truths followed when they apply to ourselves. Many need to be reminded of that word of Paul to his son Timothy, “Thou hast fully known my teaching, manner of life, purpose, faith,” &c. All was in harmony in that man of God, the teaching with the life, the purpose with the faith. All taught the same lesson; he did not build with one hand what he destroyed with the other; he had not preached to others what he had not followed out; his doctrine and his life were maintained in harmony to the end of his course; and he was able to say at the close of his life and ministry, “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course.” To him it was Christ to live as well as to preach.
The principle of trusting in this verifying faculty tolerated, will not only affect the relations of the party to those outside their own narrow circle, but it will foster a spirit of hero-worship among themselves, in the supremacy assumed and allowed of a favored teacher or teachers, who will as a matter of fact be the instructor of the less instructed, in those things which their own judgment had not taught them, nor their own vision led them to see. The result will be that a state of necessary dependence on man for instruction in the things of God will be fallen into by the many, and fostered by the few, the very opposite of that which is the legitimate position of the child of God, to whom the apostle says, “We have an unction from the Holy one and we know all things”; a position, wherein the Babe in Christ is taught of God in all that He would bind upon his conscience. There is a sad self-deception in the thought, that the light of conscience often boasted in, is that of the individual himself as taught of God; that which is learnt in these matters is mostly not from the conscience of the individual himself as exercised before God, but from the domination of another, or the overruling influence of a party, which brings into its bondage those who ought to stand in the liberty of the sons of God, a liberty that calls no man master or teacher, and allows of no lording over the conscience of another.
It was said above that the small edge of the wedge has been allowed, but the more the teaching of those who are under the influence of this system is examined, the more plainly is it perceptible, that with strong attestations of adhesion to the Word, its life and power is too frequently lost, and a system of teaching has been advocated in which man is left to play fast and loose with the oracles of God, as a self-willed conscience may dictate. There is a deeper evil in all this than those accustomed to it are prepared to acknowledge or willing to see—an evil that is only awaiting the development of fresh circumstances and new complexities to bring fully to light, for new events will drive home this destructive wedge more and more, and unless God interfere, we know too well what the end will be—an end in full accord with the course of this world, the consummation of which we are so fast approaching. Let him that readeth understand!
- ↑ For this letter in full, the reader is referred to a Pamphlet published at Sheffield, “Letters of J. N. Darby, &c., with Replies, &c.” This Pamphlet is well deserving attentive perusal, together with the notes and comments on this letter which is under review. It is sold by S. W. Spurr, West Street, Sheffield.
- ↑ “Three letters,” say the Sheffield brethren, “were afterwards received from the Priory brethren in answer to the above, assuming throughout that the offence in April, 1860, described as “grievous against the Lord’s presence and His people,” was “of a character not needing to be determined by scripture.”
- ↑ For full particulars of this matter we refer our readers to the following Pamphlets:—“Correspondence of the Walworth and Priory Gatherings.” “Letters Relating to the Recent Excommunications of Assemblies,” and “Letters of J. N. Darby, &c., with Replies on behalf of the Sheffield Brethren.” The latter Pamphlets are to be had of S. W. Spurr, West Street, Sheffield. We would particularly recommend these Pamphlets to the prayerful consideration of the people of God, that they may trace out the tendencies of this system of church fellowship.