Darbyism: Its Rise and Development/Appendix B
APPENDIX B.
Extracts from a tract on “Discipline” by J. N. D.
“We ought to remember what we are in ourselves when we talk about exercising discipline—it is an amazingly solemn thing. When I reflect that I am a poor sinner, saved by mere mercy, standing only in Jesus Christ for acceptance, in myself vile, it is, evidently, an awful thing, to take discipline into my own hands. Who can judge, save God? This is my first thought.”
“Man’s will is that which brings in everlasting destruction. It may be modified, but the principle is altogether false. There is no such thing as voluntary action, on man’s part, in the things of God: it is acting under Christ, by the Spirit. The moment I get man’s will, I get the devil’s service, and not Christ’s. This has occasioned a mass of practical difficulty, that those abroad do not feel. When I get the notion of a judicial process going on, for the trial of crime, by certain laws, I find myself altogether off the ground of grace; I have confounded all sorts of things.”
“The developed statement of Matthew xviii. 15-17, though often cited, does not seem to touch the matter. It is a question of wrong done to a brother; and it is never said, concerning the one who has done the wrong, that the church is to put him out; but ‘Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.’ This may have to be the case,as to the church, subsequently, but it is not its character here,it is simply, ‘Let him be unto thee, &c.,’ have nothing more to do with him.”
“The other kind of discipline, is that of Christ, as ‘Son over his own house.’ The case of Judas is of great value here. It will always be, that if there is spirituality in the body, evil cannot continue long; it is impossible that hypocrisy, or anything else, should continue where there is spirituality. In the case of Judas the Lord’s personal grace overcame everything; and it will always be so, proportionably, and practically. The highest manifestation of evil was against this grace—‘he that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his hand against me—He then, having received the sop,’ grace thoroughly came out when the evil was shown to be done against Himself, went immediately out’ (John xiii).”
“The great body of discipline ought to be altogether aimed at hindering excommunication, the putting of a person out. Nine-tenths of the discipline which ought to go on , is individual.
“The question, whether I can sit down with this or that person who is within, never arises. A person staying away from communion, because of another, of whom he does not think well, being there, is a most extraordinary thing; he is excommunicating himself for another’s sake. ‘For we, being many, are one bread (loaf), and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread’ (1 Cor. x. 17). If I stay away, I am saying, that I am not a christian, because another has gone wrong. That is not the way to act. There may be steps to pursue, but it is not to commit the folly of excommunicating myself, lest a sinner should intrude.”
“What character of position does Jesus hold now? That of priestly service. And we are associated with Him. If there were more of that priestly intercession implied by eating of the sin-offering within the holy place, there would be no such abomination, as that of the church assuming a judicial character.”
“If that which is done, is not done in the power of the Holy Ghost, it is nothing.”
“It is a terrible thing, to hear sinners talking about judging another sinner; but a blessed thing, to see them exercised in conscience about sin come in among them. selves. It must be in grace; I no more dare act, save in grace, than I could wish judgment to myself—‘Judge not that ye be not judged: for with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again’ (Mat. vii. 2). If we go to exercise judgment, we shall get it.”
“The moment power in the Spirit is gone, power in the flesh comes in.”
No question perhaps needs more earnest and prayerful reconsideration amongst us than that of Discipline, in which we think “the Brethren” generally have much to retrace and much to learn.
J. Wright & Co., Printers, Thomas Street, Bristol.