naturally feel himself injured by such an estimate of his conduct as the adherents of the Society might equally naturally form.
The cardinal point with Groves was not so much liberty for ministry within the church (though he was certainly attached to it) as liberty for ministry outside of it. His own liberty to minister in missionary operations without human authorisation was the starting point of his nonconformist career; a similar liberty within the Christian congregations, though he had much to do with setting it up, was merely a natural extension of the same principle. Thus in India, while he certainly contemplated the formation of a church on the “Plymouth” model (though apparently not to be formed at the expense of existing churches, but by evangelistic effort), his great aim was to set free the mass of missionary power that he judged was left unutilised. He delighted to show Christians in the army, and others, apart from all ecclesiastical questions, “the liberty they had in Christ” to preach His Word; and he seems to have done this zealously, without any ulterior object.
This will explain his attitude in the matter of Rhenius. In the abstract question of the ordination of the catechists he cannot have taken much interest. But he probably thought that constant resort to the bishop would interpose delays in the prosecution of the work. He would therefore much prefer to see Rhenius acting entirely on his own responsibility. It does not appear how much further things moved in the direction of Groves’ other views. Certainly nothing like a stable church of Brethren was formed, for after the early death of Rhenius in 1838 most of the seceding Christians returned to the Church of England.[1]
- ↑ Stock, op. cit., p. 321.
