theologian amongst the Brethren of the American continent. Mr. Grant had persuaded himself that he could accept the “Park Street decision,” with the proviso that the unity of London was a fiction. Though substantially a sincere Darbyite, he sometimes indulged in a little independent speculation; indeed his rejection of London unity would probably have sufficed of itself to arm the Priory cabal for his destruction.
The Montreal Brethren formally excommunicated Mr. Grant for heresy on the 4th of January, 1885. They then issued a tract under the title of a Narrative of Facts which led to the Rejection of Mr. F. W. Grant by the Montreal Assembly. This, being an official document “signed on behalf of the Assembly,” makes it easy to ascertain the grounds of their action. “The Assembly gathered to the name of the Lord in Montreal,” as they magniloquently say, “believe the time has come when the only course left is to obey the command of the Apostle given in Titus iii. 10: ‘A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject’.”[1]
The grounds on which Mr. Grant was “rejected,” according to this curious interpretation of St. Paul’s meaning, are carefully specified. He had taught (1) that “the O. T. [Old Testament] Saints were ‘in the Son,’ and had ‘eternal life in Him,’ in virtue of being born again;” (2) “that when thus born we are at that moment forgiven, justified, no longer in the flesh, but in Christ, and dead to sin and the law;” (3) “that this new birth gives us the full position of sons of God, and being sons we are sealed with the Holy Ghost, faith in Christ’s
- ↑ As this text has been the pretext for innumerable follies in the way of “discipline” in these later years of Brethrenism, the English reader should bear in mind that reject in this Scripture has simply the sense of shun or avoid.
