03.04. Position Of Dissent Relatively To The Gathering Of Believers

Position Of Dissent Relatively To The Gathering Of Believers

We are (may I not say it?) agreed that the gathering together in one all the children of God is according to God’s will as expressed in His word. But I ask, before I go farther, Can any one believe that the dissenting congregations, such as we see them in this or any other country, have attained to this end, or are at all likely to attain to it? This truth of the gathering together of God’s children is in Scripture seen realised in various localities, and in each central locality the Christians resident therein composed but one body: Scripture is perfectly clear on that head. It has indeed been objected that such union is impossible, but no evidence is produced from God’s word in support of the assertion. It is said, How could it possibly be in London or in Paris? Now the thing was practicable at Jerusalem, where there were more than five thousand believers: and even though meeting in private houses and upper rooms, Christians were nevertheless but one body, under the guidance of one Spirit, with one rule of government, and in one communion, and were so acknowledged. Thus, at Corinth, or elsewhere, a letter addressed to the church of God would have found its way to a known body. I go farther, and say, that it is plainly our duty to desire pastors and teachers to take the care of such congregations, and that God did raise up such in the church as we see it in the word.

Having fully recognised these weighty truths; namely (1) the union of all the children of God; (2) the union of all the children of God in each locality; having, moreover, acknowledged that they are so seen in the word of God - the question might seem to be settled. But here we pause.

It is indeed undeniable that this state of things, appearing in God’s word (for it is a fact, not a theory), 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: firstly, 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 secondly, that you are both able and authorised to restore it. Is this scriptural ground to take?

Suppose a case: God made man upright - God gave His law to man. Every Christian will allow that sin is an evil, and that it is our duty not to commit sin. Suppose that one convinced of this truth should set about fulfilling the law and being upright, and in that way pleasing God. You will at once exclaim, he is self-righteous and trusting in his own strength, and does not understand God’s word. A return from existing evil unto that which God at the first set up, is therefore not always a proof that we have understood His word and will. Nevertheless, we shall rightly and truly judge that what He did at the first set up was good, and that we have departed from it.

Apply this to the church. We all acknowledge (for to such only am I writing) that God established churches; we confess that Christians (in a word, the church generally) have sadly departed from this original settlement by God, and are guilty therein. To undertake to re-establish it all on its first footing is (at any rate, it may be) an effect of the working of that very spirit which leads one to seek to set up again his own righteousness when it has been lost.

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, now that man’s sin has tarnished and departed from that 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[1] 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; and he who says that I am not a member of God’s church at Rolle[2] has no right to acknowledge me as being any member of God’s church at all. There was no idea of any such distinction between the little churches of God in any given place, and the church as a whole. Each one was of some church, if one existed where he was, and thus in the church, but no one imagined himself to be in the church if he was separated from the church in the place he lived in. The practice of making churches has alone led to the separation of the two things, and almost obliterated the idea of God’s church, by making partial voluntary churches in different places.[3]

I return to the case of the person already supposed. Let us now suppose that his conscience has been touched and received life through the Spirit of God, what will be the effect? In the first place it will be to make him acknowledge his ruined state in consequence of sin, and the absence of all resource in any innocence or righteousness of his own. The next result will be a feeling of entire dependence on God, and submission of heart to the judgment of God on such a state. Apply this to the church and the whole dispensation. Whilst men slept, the enemy has sown tares. The church is in a state of ruin, immersed and buried in the world-invisible, if you will have it so; whilst it ought to hold forth, as a candlestick, the light of God. 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. Alas! the fact is too evident. Abraham may receive men-servants and maid-servants, oxen, camels, and asses; but his spouse is in the house of Pharaoh.

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.