may have entertained or do entertain on the subject of His connexion with Israel.” But the most significant statements are those that relate to the question of the mortality of Christ’s body. This question was rapidly becoming paramount over the whole field of the controversy, and we shall often encounter it again. The present statement of belief on the subject should be carefully observed by all who wish to form a complete opinion on the great disruption of Brethrenism. “He thus took a human body which was mortal, by which we mean a body capable of dying. … He possessed life essentially in Himself. He was the Holy One of God. He had also a claim to live as the one who in all things obeyed the will of God … and besides, he could not die, except according to God’s purpose as the sacrifice.”[1]
In taking up this ground, the Ebrington Street congregation was not merely standing on the defensive. Some of their adversaries, taking fright at doctrines that they judged to glance in an Arian direction, were finding refuge in a kind of Gnostic denial of the true manhood of Christ. The following statement by Tregelles may be taken as minutely accurate, not only because of his well-known remarkable memory, but also because there is plenty of corroborative evidence. He expressly states that several of the doctrines he quotes were put forth by men reputed to be teachers.
- ↑ This Statement from Ebrington Street was very ill received by some of the Darbyites. The indefatigable Wigram rushed into the fray. It is often hard to distinguish between Wigram’s state of mind and pure hallucination. “What,” he asks, “is the obligation as to the Table at Ebrington Street? ‘Touch not the unclean thing’ is, I am bold to say, the word of the Spirit of the Lord to every humble inquirer. Rather would I go to the table of the Socinians or of the Unitarians than to it.” Quoted by J. E. Howard in A caution against the Darbyites, p. 36. The italics are not mine; I do not know whether they are Wigram’s or Howard’s.
