19. XVII - Questions of Fellowship and of Inspiration

Chapter XVII Questions of Fellowship and of Inspiration

1830-1930

Meeting in Plymouth—Conditions in French Switzerland—Darby’s visits—Development of his system—"The church in ruins"—August Rochat—Difference between Darby’s teaching and that of brethren who took the New Testament as the pattern for the churches—Change from Congregational to Catholic principle—Spread of meetings—Letter from Groves to Darby—Suggestion of a central authority—Darby and Newton—Darby and the church at Bethesda, Bristol—Darby excludes all who would not join him in excluding the church at Bethesda—World-wide application of system of excluding churches—Churches which did not accept the exclusive system—Their influence in other circles—Churches on the New Testament pattern formed in many countries—Rationalism—Biblical Criticism—Increased circulation of the Scriptures. A meeting in Plymouth which had personal contacts with Dublin and with Bristol, early became influential, both by its numbers and by the striking gifts of some of its leaders and teachers. It was the importance of this meeting at that time which originated the name "Plymouth Brethren". Among its teachers the most eminent were Benjamin Wills Newton and J. N. Darby. The latter was connected with an assembly in London, but, devoting himself entirely to the ministry of the Word, travelled constantly and frequently ministered in Plymouth. Darby, unlike most of his associates, still taught infant baptism, though he had left the Church of England. His doctrine of it differed, however, from that of the Anglican Church, resembling rather that of Pelagius, who considered it as introducing the one baptized into a circle where he was capable of receiving the grace of God.

While F. W. Newman, once associated with A. N. Groves in Bagdad, became a powerful exponent of Rationalism, and his brother, John Henry Newman, became a chief leader of the Tractarian or Oxford movement through which the Anglo-Catholic revival in the Church of England was begun, John Nelson Darby passed through phases of development no less remarkable. In 1838 he accepted an invitation to French Switzerland. Spiritual conditions there seemed favourable to revival. The ministers of the National Church had mostly been captured by the Rationalism of the day. This had led to the Free Church movement, which nevertheless had not wholly satisfied the desires of its adherents. A hundred years earlier Zinzendorf and his band of helpers had formed a considerable company of serious seekers and witnesses, and some traces of their work still persisted. In the neighbouring Jura mountains there still existed Scripturally founded assemblies of believers, persecuted formerly as Anabaptists. In Geneva, the fruits of Robert Haldane’s Bible readings remained. The principal leaders of the Free Church movement there had been influenced by them and one result was visible in the assembly called "The New Church", which met from 1818 in Bourg de Four and later in the chapel of la Pélisserie. Other movements had taken or were taking place, both within and outside the National Church. That connected with S. H. Fröhlich had, from 1828, given rise to revival; Gaussen and Merle D’Aubigné had tried to bring back the National Church from Rationalism to the teachings of Calvin; others were combating the doctrine of Church and State and building up the Free Church, as Vinet, who with eight other theologians left the State Church in 1840, followed five years later by a large number of pastors. In the midst of such excitement and change Darby with his great gifts found a ready ear. For some time he was associated with the church of Bourg de Four. His ministry was most acceptable as he spoke of the Lord’s return, of the position of the Church, and of the believer as considered "in Christ", and as he expounded the prophetic Scriptures. His willingness to have fellowship with all believers irrespective of their church connections, attracted many. His meetings in Lausanne, which were largely attended and highly prized, gradually formed about him a special group—"the meeting"—where he further developed and formulated his particular views on the Church. With regard to the various dispensations or different periods of God’s dealings with men, Darby taught that each had failed from its beginning " ... in every instance", he says, "there was total and immediate I failure as regards man, however the patience of God might tolerate and carry on by grace the dispensation in which man had thus failed in the outset; and further ... there is no instance of the restoration of a dispensation afforded us, though there might be partial revivals of it through faith". Examples given of these failures at the beginning of dispensations are, Noah’s drunkenness, Abram’s going down into Egypt and denying Sara, the making of the golden calf by the people of Israel. The same is asserted of the Church. "There was", Darby taught, "a moral departure from God in the bosom of Christianity." Even in the lifetime of Apostles the "apostasy", "perilous times", "the last hour", "departure from the faith", the working of the "mystery of iniquity", were already present. The Apostles failed to carry out the Lord’s commission to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature; and they remained in Jerusalem when they should have fled from it. A new Apostle, of the Gentiles, was raised up to supplement their lack. "Thus", writes Darby, " ... this dispensation as well as any other failed and broke off in the very outset ... it broke down in the commencement—no sooner fully established than it proved a failure."

He then asks whether believers are competent "in our days, to form organized churches after the model, as they suppose, of the primitive churches" and "whether the forming of such bodies is agreeable to the will of God?" His answer is "No", for "the church is in a state of ruin" ... "the first departure is fatal and the ground of judgement" ... "the Scripture never recognizes a recovery from such a state" ... "It alters", he points out, "the whole position of the soul to recognize that we live in an apostasy hastening to its final consummation, instead of a Church or dispensation which God is sustaining by His faithfulness of grace". In Scripture we see: "(1) The union of all the children of God; (2) The union of all the children of God in each locality; ... this state of things, appearing in God’s word, has ceased to exist, and the question to be solved is no other than this: How ought the Christian to judge and act when a condition of things set before us in the word no longer exists? You will say, ’he is to restore it’. Your answer is itself one proof of the evil. It supposes that there is power in ourselves. I would say, listen to the word and obey it, as it applies to such a state of declension. Your answer takes for granted two things: 1st, that it is according to the will of God to re-establish the economy or dispensation on its original footing after it has failed; and, 2ndly, that you are both able and authorized to restore it".

" ... Before I can accede to your pretensions I must see, not only that the Church was such in the beginning, but, moreover, that it is according to God’s will that it be restored to its primitive glory; and, furthermore, that a voluntary union of ’two or three’ or two or three and twenty, or several such bodies, are each of them entitled, in any locality, to take the name of the Church of God, when that Church originally was an assemblage of all believers in any given locality. You must moreover, make it clear to me, if you assume such a place, that you have so succeeded by the gift and power of God in gathering together believers that you can rightfully treat those who refuse to answer to your call as schismatics, self-condemned, and strangers to God’s Church. And let me here dwell on a most important consideration, which they who are bent on making churches have overlooked. They have had their thoughts so fully engaged in their churches that they have almost lost sight of the Church."

"According to scripture the whole sum of the churches here on earth compose the Church, at least the Church on earth; and the Church in any given place was no other than the regular association together of whatever formed part of the entire body of the Church, that is to say, of the complete body of Christ here on earth; and he who was not a member of the Church in the place in which he dwelt, was no member of Christ’s Church at all...." "The Church is in a state of ruin ... If the professing body is not in this state of ruin, then I ask our dissenting brethren, Why have you left it? If it be, then confess this ruin—this apostasy—this departure from its primitive standing...."

"How, then, will the Spirit work? What will be the acting of such an one’s faith? To acknowledge the ruin; to have it present to his conscience, and to be humbled in consequence. And shall we, who are guilty of this state of things, pretend we have only to set about and remedy it? No; the attempt would but prove that we are not humbled thereby. Let us rather search in all humility what God says to us in His word of such a condition of things; and let us not, like foolish children who have broken a precious vase, attempt to join together its broken fragments, and to set it up in hopes to hide the damage from the notice of others."

"I press this argument on those who are endeavouring to organize churches. If real churches exist, such persons are not called on to make them. If, as they say, they did exist at the beginning but have ceased to exist, in that case the dispensation is in ruins, and in a condition of entire departure from its original standing. They are undertaking in consequence thereof to set it up again. This attempt is what they have to justify; otherwise the attempt is without anything to warrant it.... To go about remaking the Church and the churches on the footing on which they stood at first is to acknowledge the fact of existing failure without submitting ourselves to the witness of God, as to His purposes with reference to such a state of ruin.... The question before us is not whether such churches existed at the period when the word of God was written; but whether, after they have, by reason of man’s sin, ceased to exist, and believers have been scattered, those who have undertaken the apostolic office of re-establishing them on their original footing, and in so doing, to set up again the entire dispensation, have really apprehended the Divine will, and are endued with power to accomplish the task they have taken upon themselves.... I am enquiring what the word and the Spirit say of the state of the fallen Church, instead of arrogating to myself a competency to realize that which the Spirit has spoken of the first condition of the Church."

"What I complain of is, that the thoughts of men have been followed, and that which the Spirit has recorded as having existed in the primitive Church has been imitated, instead of searching for what the word and the Spirit have declared concerning our present condition.... Obedience, and not imitation of the Apostles, is our duty in such circumstances.... When we are told that all the directions for the churches are for all times and places, I venture to ask if they are for times and places in which churches do not exist? and we are brought back to the enquiry—If the dispensation is in ruins who is to make churches?..."

"If I am asked what the children of God have to do in the present circumstances of the Church, my answer is very simple. They ought to meet in the unity of the body of Christ outside the world.... As regards details, take heed to the promise of the Lord ’Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Mat 18:20). That is what the heart needs that loves God and is tired of the world. Reckon upon that promise of the Lord, you, children of God, disciples of Jesus. If two or three of you meet together in His Name He will be there. It is there that God has put His Name, as of old in His temple at Jerusalem. You need nothing else but to meet together thus in faith. God is in your midst; you will see His glory.... Remember also, that when the disciples came together, it was to break bread.... If God sends us or raises up among us some one who can feed our souls, let us receive him with joy and thankfulness from God, according to the gift that has been vouchsafed to him.... Never make any regulations; the Holy Spirit will guide you.... As to discipline, remember that cutting off is the extreme resource.... To preserve the holiness of the Lord’s table is a positive duty.... We owe it to Christ Himself. Cases may present themselves, where we repel with fear the manifestation of sin (Jude 1:23); but, on the other hand, beware of a judicial spirit, as of fire in your house ...! ’Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them’. If the whole corporate system has come to naught, I get back to certain unchangeable blessed principles from which all is derived. The very thing from which all springs, to which Christ has attached, not only His name, but His discipline—the power of binding and loosing—is the gathering together of the ’two’ or ’three’". As to leaving an assembly, or setting up, as it is called, another table, Darby writes: "I am not so afraid of it as some other brethren, but I must explain my reasons. If such or such a meeting were the Church here, leaving it would be severing oneself from the assembly of God. But though wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name He is in the midst, and the blessing and responsibility of the Church is, in a certain sense also, if any Christians now set up to be the Church, or did any formal act which pretended to it, I should leave them, as being a false pretension, and denying the very testimony to the state or ruin which God has called us to render. It would have ceased to be the table of the people and testimony Of God at least intelligently.... But, then, on the other hand united testimony to the truth is the greatest possible blessing from on high. And I think that if anyone, through the flesh separated from two or three walking godlily before God in the unity of the whole body of Christ, it would not merely be an act of schism, but he would necessarily deprive himself of the blessing of God’s presence."

Among many in Switzerland who controverted Darby’s views one of the most distinguished both in character and ability was Auguste Rochat. He, referring to the expression "the Church in ruins", showed that the Church as a united body cannot be in ruins though individuals may fall away. He pointed out that, while the Holy Scripture speaks of assemblies it does not call the groups of believers living on the earth separated from each other in different places, the Assembly or Church. Church, as general assembly, includes the believers of all times and places, those who are no longer living on the earth and those who are not yet born: the local assemblies are only bound together by love and brotherly fellowship. Darby taught that the Apostles alone, or their representatives, had had the right to choose or appoint elders in the church, but that in these days of apostasy those persons who are gifted by God for special service may be acknowledged, but not by any official designation. Rochat replied that there is no passage of Scripture that supports this but that on the contrary the assemblies had this right for they chose the men for certain offices in the church and placed them before the Apostles that they might acknowledge them and lay their hands on them. Rochat refused to accept Darby’s expressions, "ruin", "apostasy", as applicable to the Church. An order of things cannot apostatize, only an individual can do this. The true Assembly never apostatizes. The Word of God never speaks of the apostasy of the Church.

Darby’s theory of the immediate failure of each of the dispensations, and especially of "the ruin of the Church", and the deductions he drew from it, placed him, in principle, in opposition to all those who, throughout the Church’s history, have either kept to the teachings and pattern of the New Testament, or have returned to those Scriptures as to a sure and abiding guide. His view that the churches ceased to exist almost as soon as the Epistles written for their guidance had been competed, would render a great part of the New Testament inapplicable to present conditions. His teaching abolishes the independence of congregations of believers and their immediate relations with the Lord, bringing in a body, introduction into which, or exclusion from which, by any part, is binding upon the whole; the Congregational principle exchanged for the Catholic.

Although he condemned the formation of churches, yet the gatherings of two or three or more which he commended exercised disciplinary powers, not only in their own local circle, but extending to the whole system of which they formed a part. In spite of these limitations a great measure of spiritual power and blessing resulted from that part of Darby’s teaching which revived truths contained in Scripture. He not only indicated the weakness of existing denominations, but his ministry stimulated faith in God and occupation with His Word, quickened the expectation of the Lord’s return, with its sanctifying influences, and emphasized the liberty of the Spirit, who gives gifts according to His will through the various members of the body of Christ. Much spiritual blessing was experienced in the meetings. They spread rapidly, not only in Switzerland, but also in France and Belgium, Germany and Holland, Italy, and beyond.

They formed a close circle of communion among themselves, and this soon led to separation from many with whom Darby had formerly associated. About 60 members of the assembly of Bourg de Four separated from it (1842) and attached themselves to Darby’s meetings, and in the Canton de Vaud many left the Free Church and took the same step.

Darby’s development was looked upon as having dangerous tendencies, by some who still regarded him personally with undiminished love and respect, as is seen from a letter written to him in 1836 by Groves, on leaving again for India after a visit to England. He wrote: " ... I wish you to feel assured that nothing has estranged my heart from you, or lowered my confidence in your being still animated by the same enlarged and generous purposes that once so won and riveted me; and though I feel you have departed from those principles by which you once hoped to have effected them, and are in principle returning to the city from whence you departed, still my soul so reposes in the truth of your heart to God that I feel it needs but a step or two to advance and you will see all the evils of the systems from which you profess to be separated, to spring up among yourselves. You will not discover this so much from the workings of your own soul as by the spirit of those who have been nurtured up from the beginning, in the system they are taught to feel the only tolerable one; that not having been led like you, and some of those earliest connected with you, through deep experimental suffering and sorrow, they are little acquainted with the real truth that may exist amidst inconceivable darkness; there will be little pity and little sympathy with such, and your union daily becoming one of doctrine and opinion more than light and love, your government will become—unseen perhaps, and unexpressed, yet—one wherein, overwhelmingly, is felt the authority of men; you will be known more by what you witness against than what you witness for, and practically this will prove that you witness against all but yourselves.... It has been asserted ... that I have changed my principles; all I can say is, that as far as I know what those principles were, in which I gloried on first discovering them in the word of God, I now glory in them ten times more since I have experienced their applicability to all the various and perplexing circumstances of the present state of the church; allowing you to give every individual, and collection of individuals, the standing God gives them, without identifying yourselves with any of their evils. I ever understood our principles of communion to be the possession of the common life ... of the family of God ... these were our early thoughts and are my most matured ones. The transition your little bodies have undergone, in no longer standing forth the witnesses for the glorious and simple truth, so much as standing forth witnesses against all that they judge error, have lowered them in my apprehension from heaven to earth.... What I mean is, that then, all our thoughts were conversant about how we might ourselves most effectually manifest forth that life we have received by Jesus (knowing that that alone could be as the Shepherd’s voice to the living children) and where we might find that life in others; and when we were persuaded we had found it, bidding them, on the Divine claim of this common life (whether their thoughts on other matters were narrow or enlarged) to come and share with us, in the fellowship of the common Spirit, in the worship of our common Head; and as Christ had received them, so would we to the glory of God the Father; and farther, that we were free, within the limits of truth, to share with them in part, though we could not in all, their services.... I would infinitely rather bear with all their evils, than separate from their good ... feeling assured in my own heart, that your enlarged and generous spirit, so richly taught of the Lord, will one day burst again those bands, which narrower minds than yours have encircled you with, and come forth again, rather anxious to advance all the living members of the living Head into the stature of men, than to be encircled by any little bodies, however numerous, that own you for their founder...." That the idea of a central authority for the meetings was considered, is indicated in a letter from Wigram, one of Darby’s closest adherents, in which he asks the question, regarding meetings in London: "How are meetings for communion of saints in these parts to be regulated? Would it be for the glory of the Lord and the increase of testimony to have one central meeting, the common responsibility of all within reach, and as many meetings subordinate to it as grace might vouchsafe? or to hold it to be better to allow the meetings to grow up as they may without connexion and dependent upon the energy of individuals only?"

Returning in 1845 from a visit to the Continent, Darby went to Plymouth to deal with conditions there which he judged to be unsatisfactory because of the influence and teaching of Newton. There had long been divergence between these two able men. They differed in their views on dispensational truth and on prophecy and on points of church order. There had been no little controversy both by word and pen and a party spirit had grown up. Darby’s visit brought matters to a crisis. At the close of the meeting one Sunday morning he announced his intention to "quit the assembly" and some weeks later he began to break bread in Plymouth with his supporters apart from the original assembly. About two years after this some MS. notes—taken by a hearer—of an address given some time before by Newton, came into the hands of one of Darby’s sympathizers. It contained comments on the Psalms, and Darby and his friends maintained that in these comments, Newton, explaining their typical application to Christ, had taught unorthodox doctrine with regard to the nature of the sufferings of Christ during His life on earth, and on the cross. The notes were published without reference to Newton in regard to their accuracy; their unorthodox character was pointed out, deductions were drawn and a charge of heresy fastened upon him. Newton, while repudiating the doctrine deduced from these notes, and affirming his firm, unquestioning belief in Christ as truly God and truly man, untouched by sin, admitted having used expressions from which wrong conclusions could legitimately be drawn. He therefore published A Statement and Acknowledgment respecting Certain Doctrinal Errors, in which he confessed his error, acknowledging it as sin, and withdrew all statements, in print or otherwise, in which it could be found, expressed his grief at having injured any and prayed that the Lord would not only pardon him but also counteract any evil effects. This acknowledgment made no impression on Newton’s accusers, who continued with unabated zeal to connect him with the heresy he denied. When the division took place in Plymouth, the church at Bethesda Chapel, Bristol, where Müller and Craik were, took no side in the controversy, but acknowledged as fellow-believers those in both meetings. In 1848 two brethren from the meeting in Plymouth which Darby had excommunicated, visited Bristol, where they were in the habit on such occasions of breaking bread at Bethesda. They were carefully examined as to their soundness in doctrine and freedom from the error attributed to Newton. All being satisfied as to this, they were received as they formerly had been. Darby now required that the church at Bethesda should judge the question of Plymouth, which they declined to do, on the ground that it was not a question that affected them, that they were not competent to judge a church, and that it would be harmful to introduce discussions on such a topic. Eventually, owing to pressure also from within, the question was considered, and a letter written stating "that no one defending, maintaining or upholding Mr. Newton’s views or tracts should be received into communion", but, they continued: "Supposing the author of the tracts were fundamentally heretical, this would not warrant us in rejecting those who came from under his teaching, until we were satisfied that they had understood and imbibed views essentially subversive of foundation-truth ..." Darby then wrote: "I feel bound to present to you the case of Bethesda. It involves to my mind the whole question of association with brethren, and for this very simple reason, that if there is incapacity to keep out that which has been recognized as the work and power of Satan, and to guard the beloved sheep of Christ against it—if brethren are incapable of this service to Christ, then they ought not to be in any way owned as a body to whom such service is confided: their gatherings would be really a trap laid to ensnare the sheep.... I do not ... desire in the smallest degree to diminish the respect and value which any may feel personally for the brethren Craik and Müller, on the grounds of that in which they have honoured God by faith ... but I do call upon brethren by their faithfulness to Christ, and love to the sons of those dear to Him, in faithfulness to set up a barrier against this evil. Woe be to them if they love the brethren Müller and Craik or their own ease more than the souls of saints dear to Christ! And I plainly urge upon them that to receive anyone from Bethesda (unless in any exceptional case of ignorance of what has passed) is opening the door now to the infection of the abominable evil from which at so much painful cost we have been delivered. It has been formally and deliberately admitted at Bethesda under the plea of not investigating it (itself a principle which refuses to watch against roots of bitterness), and really palliated. And if this be admitted by receiving persons from Bethesda, those doing so are morally identified with the evil, for the body so acting is corporately responsible for the evil they admit. If brethren think they can admit those who subvert the person and glory of Christ, and principles which have led to so much untruth and dishonesty, it is well they should say so, that those who cannot may know what to do.... For my own part, I should neither go to Bethesda in its present state, nor while in that state go where persons from it were knowingly admitted"

Thus the church at Bethesda was excommunicated and all who might have fellowship with it. The ostensible ground was that of false doctrine, but this doctrine was never held by any at Bethesda. The real reason was that, while the church at Bethesda continued to do what Darby himself had done at the first, that is, to maintain the independence of each congregation and its right to receive any individual whom it had reason to believe was born again and sound in faith and conduct, Darby had shifted from that ground and adopted the "catholic" position of an organized body of churches, excluding all outside their own circle, and subject to one central authority, in this case himself and the meeting in London with which he was associated. Fellowship ceased to be based on life, rejection of Bethesda was also obligatory. No faith or godliness could atone for refusal to condemn Bethesda.

Even Darby’s marvellous influence could not impose this great change on all, but, by untiring propaganda, a large number of churches were induced to accept as a necessary test of fellowship the condemnation of the church at Bethesda on account of a doctrine never held by it. By dint of constant repetition this circle of churches came to believe, in all sincerity, that Bethesda had been cut off for holding Newton’s error, an error which he himself had repudiated, and which the church at Bethesda had never entertained. So consistently was this system carried out that Negro brethren in the West Indies had to judge the Bethesda question, and Swiss peasants in their Alpine villages were obliged to examine the errors attributed to Newton and condemn them.

Such a system could not fail to lead to further divisions. Even in Darby’s lifetime, several such took place, the parties taking different sides excluding each other as rigorously as they had unitedly excluded Groves and Müller.

Those churches which did not follow Darby continued their endeavour to carry out the principles of Scripture. They varied in many ways, but as they did not believe in the right of one church to cut off another their differences did not necessitate division. Some of them, standing in fear of the criticisms of the followers of Darby (often called "Exclusives") became, in varying degrees, exclusive themselves, but others maintained fellowship with all saints. Though persistently calumniated and rejected by those who had separated from them, they did not cease to include these in the number of those whom they were willing to receive, recognizing them as brethren. Robert Chapman expressed their attitude toward them when, refusing to use the odious name "Exclusive", he called them "Brethren dearly beloved and longed for", and described them as "Those brethren whose consciences lead them to refuse my fellowship and to deprive me of theirs". The churches which, with Chapman, maintained the original ground of fellowship were often called "Open Brethren", but while there must always have been some individuals and some churches among them which were sectarian at heart and so deserved a sectarian name, for there is an ever-present danger in any spiritual movement that it may crystallize into a sect, yet there remained many who might rightly claim every name that unites, while disclaiming every name that divides the Lord’s people. They maintained an active Gospel testimony, reaching out also into most parts of the world. The influence of this movement has been important beyond the limits of the meetings more particularly associated with it. In face of the great prevalence of Rationalism, and its having captured to so large an extent the Theological Colleges, the pulpits of the principal Nonconformist bodies, and of a considerable section of the Church of England, these meetings have maintained absolute loyalty to the Scriptures as inspired by God and have defended this conviction with an ability and zeal that makes them valuable allies of the numerous believers who, in their different circles, suffer under those of their ministers and clergy who have no such faith.

Movements of a similar character, that is, of believers meeting in accordance with the New Testament teaching and example, are to be found in many parts of the world. They are free from the historic developments of ritual or organization that have drawn so many away from the pattern, and their simplicity makes them adaptable to all varieties of men and conditions. They do not publish, nor even compile, statistics, nor do they depend on publicity or appeals for help for carrying on their testimony, so that they are little known in the world, even in the religious world, and this gives their work a quiet effectiveness, the value of which is especially seen when they come into circumstances of persecution. Such circles are continually being formed in our day among every kind of people, they contain in themselves the power for carrying the Word of Life farther afield, and go on increasing. Their histories are constantly reminiscent of the Book of the Acts, those who go among some of them—and none can know them all—see that their works are like those of their Lord, "if they should be written every one ... even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written".

Attention has been drawn to persons and to churches that have accepted the Scriptures as a Divine Revelation, suited and sufficient to show the way of personal salvation and conduct as well as to guide the churches of those who believe in regard to their order and their testimony.

It has been seen how a clerical body arose which gradually assumed dominion and developed a system of Ritualism which became the relentless enemy of those who continued to act upon the teaching of the Scriptures. A different form of attack upon the Scriptures, which may be described as Rationalism, was developed in the 19th century. Rationalism set aside Revelation, assuming the sufficiency of the mind, or Reason, to enable man to find out truth and to attain to the highest good. The unprecedented progress made in scientific knowledge not only gave valuable insight into the works of God in Creation, but also stirred in some minds a desire to explain creation apart from God. This made it necessary to prove that the account of the Creation given in the book of Genesis did not spring from Divine inspiration, but from the ignorance of men, who, living before us, were presumed to have known less than we do. As fresh discoveries were made in the illimitable field of Nature, theories were founded upon them which were said to be incompatible with the Genesis history and therefore to prove it incorrect. As further facts came to light new theories had to be formed, each displacing its predecessor, yet each in turn accepted on the authority of the learning of the men of science who promulgated it. The "Origin of Species" published by Charles Darwin in 1859 is an important landmark in this development of thought.

Those who accepted the view that there had been no creation, of necessity lost the knowledge of the Creator. This involved the loss of all revealed knowledge, for the revelation of God through the Scriptures begins with Creation as the work of God, without which there could have been no Fall of His creature, Man; and neither need nor possibility of man’s Redemption. Consequently, the new theories evolved from the minds of men discarded the Scripture teaching of the Fall, replacing it by constantly changing theories of the development of man from a lower form of life. The experience of Salvation and the hope of Redemption became incredible on the basis of these teachings, and whatever vague promises might be held out to the race, the individual was left without hope.

Although in the minds of the multitude evolution has replaced God the Creator, so that many trace their ancestry from beasts rather than from God, and are ignorant of God as their Redeemer, yet not all, even among those recognized as the most eminent men of science, have followed this teaching. It would not be correct to say that increase of knowledge of the facts of Nature necessarily leads to disbelief in God or in the Scriptures. Many have found that the more they have learned of the works of God in Creation the more they have appreciated the consonance of this revelation with that contained in the Scriptures. Indeed, the assertion so often and so eagerly made that no modern, intelligent, educated man can believe the Scriptures, is without foundation. It is not a fact that the more people know the less they believe, nor yet that the more ignorant they are the more faith they possess.

Rationalism is largely due to the failure to recognize that man is not only mind, but mind and heart, and that the mind always serves the heart. The heart, which is the character, will and affections, and is the seat of experience, uses in its service the mind, with its intelligence and reasoning powers. The heart of the natural man uses his mind in order to justify his unbelief in God and in Scripture by finding countless reasons for complaint against God, and contradictions and errors in the Scriptures; but if this same man has an experience which brings him to see his sinful state, his need of salvation, and Christ is revealed to him, then his heart—that is his will and affections—are captured; they go out to Christ in faith as Saviour and Lord, and the Divine and Eternal Life is communicated to him, as it is written: "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). With that his mind, though neither more nor less capable, intelligent and instructed than before, enters into the service of a changed heart, finding truth and beauty and revelation in the very Scriptures which it formerly despised, and discovering in the ways of God constant reason for thanksgiving and worship. Saul the persecutor, changed to Paul the apostle is a striking illustration of this.

Another line of attack upon the Scriptures, also developed chiefly in the 19th century, took the form of Biblical Criticism. This, like the investigations of Science, is in itself good, but Rationalism pushed it into erroneous theories. The critical examination of the text of Scripture, including the study of the ancient manuscripts, has been of the utmost value, correcting errors and exhibiting more fully the content, force, and meaning of the written Word. The "Higher Criticism", taking into account the historical, geographical and other outward circumstances under which the different books were written, examining also their internal literary character, and deducing from all these what may be learned as to their date and authorship, has brought much of interest to light. Here again, however, the rationalistic method, the examination of the Scriptures apart from God, leaving out of account the inspiration of the Holy Spirit working through the human authors and in conjunction with them, has led to strange and varying theories. The Scriptures were given to the world through a chosen instrument, the people of Israel. Moses and the Prophets spoke by the Word of the Lord, and the different books containing their utterances, whether Law, Histories, Psalms, or Prophecies, were preserved by the Jewish people with a care and tenacity of which no other race would have been capable. Christ and the Apostles accepted and used the Old Testament to the full as the Word of God, completing it by the addition of the New Testament. In all times this Book, or Bible, has been accepted as divinely inspired, and by its working in the hearts and lives of men has proved its Divine power. There have always been those who denied its claims, but it was reserved for the 19th century to see so far-reaching a development of this denial.

Ritualism had long taught a development which added to Scripture and involved departure from it, but Rationalism, taking from it, has the effect of undermining it and destroying its credibility.

One of the earlier of the more striking developments of the Higher Criticism was founded on the use of different names for God in the book of Genesis. From these differences it was argued that the book must be the work of different authors. Much ingenuity was then displayed in dividing this, and subsequently other books, into the different authorships, various critics having their varying schemes. Under this process the personality of Moses was obscured, and it soon became the fashion to deny the existence of Abraham and of other characters described in the earlier Scriptures, representing them as mythical personages, the product of legends concerning several heroes attached to one imaginary man. Further and more rapid progress was made on these lines when Eduard Reuss (1834) put forward a theory that the books of the Law were written after those of the Prophets, and the Psalms later still. This supposition gave rise to much speculation and fitting of the various parts of the Old Testament into the newly devised scheme. At the same time the New Testament miracles were rejected as impossible, and it was laboriously explained how the narration of them grew up out of misunderstandings and legendary accretions. The Gospel history was reconstructed; Renan’s "Vie de Jesus" and the "Leben Jesu" of Strauss had a considerable vogue for a time. Criticism ran riot. The mere fact that anything was affirmed in the Bible was almost considered as a reason for doubting its truth. Such extremes led to a certain amount of reaction; much that had been rejected was readmitted. Archaeological research revealed the historical exactitude of much that had been pronounced fabulous. The increasing occupation of many with the Scriptures, which these conflicts aroused, brought out more than ever their treasures of truth and wisdom. All the time they continued to be the means of bringing salvation to sinners of every sort. As Ritualism owed it to the clergy that it became effectual as a means of keeping sinners from the Saviour, so Rationalism is indebted for its wide prevalence to-day, and its power to hold multitudes in unbelief, to the fact that it laid hold of the ministerial and theological mind, and seemed to make those who adopted it the intellectual leaders of the people. Its conquest of the theological colleges and training institutions for the ministry has been little short of complete, so that the spiritual guides of the people lead their often unwilling flocks where there is no pasture, showing them that they can no longer be considered intellectual, nor even intelligent, unless they accept the supposed proofs that there is no divinely inspired revelation, and consequently no Creator; no Son of God who for the sake of sinners became Man and, for us men, vanquished sin and death and opened the way of return to God. The Rationalist teaching has reduced him to a good man, often mistaken, though a pattern for our imitation. Promises that these doctrines would bring about universal peace, prosperity and brotherhood, have been woefully belied by war and preparation for war, by strike and bankruptcy. The hope and expectation of the Lord’s coming to reign are lost to those who do not know Who it was who came to suffer.

Among many in all these bodies who resisted this teaching and continued to use the Scriptures with a power and effect which demonstrated the truth of their claim to be the inspired Word of God, none was more eminent than Charles Haddon Spurgeon. When nineteen years of age (1851) he was converted and received among the Baptists. Immediately he began to witness for Christ and a year later, setting aside any conventional theological preparation, became pastor of a Baptist church. His preaching even then was with such spiritual power that increasing numbers were attracted to hear him. No available building was sufficient for such a preacher, so the Metropolitan Tabernacle was built to seat 6000 people, and there he not only preached the Gospel regularly throughout his lifetime, but expounded the Scriptures and took his part, with his great gifts and with unspoiled humility, in the building up of a church on New Testament principles, from which streams of life flowed to innumerable souls. In preaching, Spurgeon adhered closely to the Scriptures, which he applied with genuine sympathy and emotion to his hearers, pointing his message with endless apt illustration and with a pungent humour that never failed. His sermons were as effectual when read as when heard; they were published as soon as preached and their circulation was immense, continuing after his death. Feeling strongly the hindrance to the Gospel caused by the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, he took the bold course of preaching and publishing a sermon on the subject, which exposed him to attack from the large number of Protestant and Evangelical bodies which hold it. The conflict aroused led him a year later to withdraw from the "Evangelical Alliance." As Biblical criticism developed along the line of undermining faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures and came increasingly to influence the "Baptist Union", Spurgeon withdrew from that association also (1887). This step cost him friends and involved him in controversy, but put heart into many who were in danger of doubting the foundations of their faith, and, in difficult days, encouraged that justification of the truth of Scripture which was soon to be so strongly reinforced by the further discoveries of both ancient historical and modern scientific research. At the same time, the Scriptures were never so widely circulated, nor so much read as now, and their call to repentance and faith is as effectual as ever it was. The British and Foreign Bible Society, with others, not only continues, but continues to increase its translations and sales. Its colporteurs press in growing numbers into ever-widening spheres. New translations open up the treasures of the Word to the most remote peoples. If among some favoured peoples the gift of the free reading of the Scriptures, so dearly bought by the blood of their ancestors, is neglected, there are those, later called, who are pressing into the places of the first.

It has been reserved for the twentieth century to experience an unexampled acceleration in the course of events. As an avalanche begins its slow movement, which, from being almost imperceptible, gains in speed until it comes down with overwhelming power, so the slow development of earlier years has become the rushing torrent of our time. The powers hidden in the air are being uncovered—"And God said Let there be a firmament" (Gen 1:6), and for long men were content to breathe it, but now it is found to be the carrier of light and heat and electricity, and of sound, so that the voice speaking may be heard round the world—and by millions of listeners. Its mass carries mighty machines and that at incredible speeds, so that distance diminishes and all the world is bound together. The structure and qualities of material things are examined and found to contain complexities of form and action of unimaginable variety. In the midst of such wonders human intelligence has been quickened and knowledge has been put to uses good and bad, all of which tend to speed the pace at which our age presses on to its consummation. In this great stream of history the Scriptures remain unchanged and are found to be equally applicable to all the changing conditions of life. Those who walk in obedience of faith, whether gathered in churches or scattered through the world, find that this compass always points to Christ, of Whom God sent into the world "that the world should be saved through Him."

Those churches which still make the Scriptures their guide and pattern, and endeavour to act according to this rule, are entirely free from Rationalism, as they have always been from Ritualism. They therefore form a bulwark against unbelief and provide a refuge for souls seeking where they may act in obedience to the Word of God in fellowship with those like-minded. Their increase and their spread into many countries, as well as the fact that fresh churches keep arising spontaneously in parts where the Bible penetrates, is of the greatest importance. It is also to be anticipated that, as many of the different denominations depart farther from the faith, there will be Christians among them who will find themselves obliged to do as so many have done before them, that is, form churches of those that believe, to carry out the teachings of the Word themselves and preach the saving Gospel to others. Members of the clergy have often been leaders in revivals following on some return to the principles of the Word of God, and this may be so again. Huss the chaplain, Luther the monk, Spener and Franke, both Lutheran pastors, and the Church of England clergymen, John and Charles Wesley, with George Whitefield, are but a few examples. The training and experience of such men become especially valuable when once they are freed from the fetters which hinder the obedience of faith.