thing, then all that are in the House, be they adults or infants, have part in the privileges which belong to the Body.”[1] According to this view, infants may be in the House, which, be it remembered, is the Church of God, and not members of the Body of Christ. To plain people this will not be very intelligent. Again, infallibility in interpretation seems contended for. This, indeed, is a consequence of their doctrine of the Divine presidency in the Assembly. For, as Dr. Carson has noted, if the Holy Ghost speaks by those who minister in the Assembly, the utterance must be infallible; and the Doctor gives a quotation from Present Testimony, on the authority of Mr. Govett, from a paper by Mr. Darby, in support of this view. “It is not sobriety, says Mr. Darby,as a Christian, to overlook or deny the present direct guidance by the Lord, through His Spirit, of His Disciples as being something over and above the written word.” Argument, therefore, is impossible, for “the Brethren” have this guidance and you have it not, and so they tell you, in answer to your citation from the Scriptures (this has happened to me again and again), “You are in darkness―this is to be received.” But where the difference between this “guidance” of “the Brethren” and the inner light of Fox, and the verifying faculty of Colenso and the Rationalists, and the infallibility of Rome? In any case the Bible ceases to be a light to our feet and a lamp to our path; and if I want to know the truth I must go, not to the feet of my Lord and Saviour, but to the feet of “the Brethren,” who have that special guidance which is wanting to other denominations of Christians.
We have not specified all the doctrines of “the Brethren.” There are a few they hold in common with others, and in some particulars they have done valuable service. But, as Dr. Carson says, “The
- ↑ Vol. xi., pp. 40, 41.
