THE LONDON ECCLESIA.
In the independent way, Baxter, describing the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, says, "I disliked many things." After mentioning what those
things were--their making too light of ordination, their unnecessary and
unscriptural strictness about the qualification of church members--he
adds, "I disliked also the lamentable tendency of this their way to
divisions and subdivisions and the nourishing of heresies and sects."
The soul of the good man was wearied, as well it might be, with these
differences, so trifling yet so fiercely discussed, with this waste of
power, with this spirit of wrangling and contention, with these quarrels
of Christian with Christian, when the world was only to be made better,
and the true Church only to be built up, by a holy life. In our time the
tendency of some minds to fly off into fresh sects is greater, perhaps,
than ever. In one street you see a placard up stating that here the
Gospel is preached, and nowhere else. A good man says he is weary of all
this sectarianism, and at once hires a room and starts a new sect. A
man's conscience is too sensitive to allow him to worship with a one-man
ministry, or with any existing denomination. He shakes his head, and
mourns over their worldliness, their carnality, their want of spiritual
life; but does he better it by standing aloof, by shutting himself up
with a few dismal-minded people, who come with their Bibles, and see in
them, not what sound scholarly criticism teaches, but that which their
own morbid fancy suggests? As men of the world, these things are to be
looked at practically, and by the light of common sense. Here are
certain religious agencies at work--by them people are being strengthened
in the Christian life, trained to Christian work, in their way promoting
the welfare of man, and glorifying God. I may affect a superior piety, I
may refuse to associate with common Christians, I may leave them; but
what is the result? That as far as I can I put hindrances in their way.
Ignorant people look up to me as a saint, and the church and the minister
where I have any influence are to the extent of that influence damaged.
A gentleman writes to me--"Those who now represent the London Ecclesia,
in recognition of the constitution and order of its organization, are, in
this metropolis, myself and three others;" and then quotes--"'Strait is
the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be
that find it.'" It is in Peckham this new religious body meets. At such
meetings they do not admit strangers, in fulfilment of the ordinance of
the Lord which enjoins us to assemble "ourselves together to worship God
in spirit and in truth," and commands us--"If there come any unto you and
bring not this doctrine (the doctrine of the Christ), receive him not
into your house, neither bid him God speed."
For the doctrines of this new sect I must refer the inquirer to a
pamphlet published at 22, Paternoster Row, called "The Truth as it is in
Jesus, defined in the Constitution and Order of the London Ecclesia, or
immersed believers of the things of the Kingdom of God and the name of
Jesus Christ." In this pamphlet we have a summary of the faith delivered
to the saints contrasted with the erroneous dogmas of popular theology,
and also the apostolic rules for an ecclesiastical organization. In
America, and many parts of England, Ecclesias, as they call them, exist.
The document to which they subscribe their names is an exceedingly
lengthy one, nor is it very intelligible. I should say that wherein they
differ from other Christians in point of doctrine is this, that
"everlasting life is the gracious gift of God through our Lord Jesus the
Christ--the clothing upon the living soul or mortal body of life of a
justified believer, with the quickening spirit or house which is from
heaven, or the swallowing up of his death nature in the life of the
Divine nature, so that this corruptible puts on incorruption, and this
mortal puts on immortality by an impartation of spirit-life energy into
every fibre of its organism, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
during the sounding of the last trumpet; and according to his type the
Lord Jesus, the saint then becomes a son of God in power by a spirit of
holiness, through a resurrection from among the dead, and cannot sin
because he is born of God, and lives and moves and has his being in the
essential goodness and peace and blessedness of the Divine existence."
Hence "the physical and moral impossibility of _an immoral agency of
evil_ exercising the attributes of an uncreated spirit--omniscience,
omnipotence, and omnipresence--emanating from the Supreme Good, to
antagonize His purposes and defeat the counsels of His will concerning
the redemption of the Adamic race for the glory of His name."
So far I quote what the followers of this new sect call their Marturion.
As people generally can neither understand nor find time to read such
verbose and minute confessions of faith, let me add that they believe
that punishment on the finally impenitent is "the infliction on him as a
living soul or mortal body of life of the many or few stripes in
execution of his sentence until the appointed hour of his final doom
arrives--to utterly perish in his own corruption." Furthermore, I glean
that with them the Devil simply means sin in the flesh. As the reader
will have gathered from the title of their confession, they baptize with
immersion; they deny, amongst other things, the common doctrine of the
Trinity, or that Christ is God and had an existence independent of the
Father; that the Holy Ghost operates of His own power as God; that God
fashioned man after His own image; that the serpent was an incarnation of
an immoral intelligence; they deny the common ideas of heaven and hell;
that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses the sin of the whole world, so
that infants, idiots, and believers obtain eternal salvation under the
covenanted and uncovenanted mercies of God; or that the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas,
through the instrumentality of the orthodox ministry as ambassadors of
Christ, beseeching men in His stead to be reconciled to God by believing
in the Gospel, and in the Jesus they present as the Way, the Truth, and
the Life, and that Christ is with them always, even to the end of the
world. Their appeal is, however, to the Bible, and its inspiration is
one of the cardinal articles of their creed.
Let me now speak of their order. They meet every Sunday for worship, and
for the purpose of celebrating the Lord's Supper, and have, besides,
occasional meetings for the exposition and study of Scripture. The
executive consists of a presiding elder and deacons elected by the
members. A candidate for church membership is required to make a written
confession, and every one joining the Ecclesia, either by immersion or by
admission from other Ecclesias, is to sign the articles of constitution
and order of which I have given a brief outline.
As regards the service, any brother is at liberty to take a part. Of
course this is the defect of this system--as of all such, where the
public are concerned. As a rule, nothing can be more inedifying or
dreary or repelling than amateur preaching, and this is manifestly the
weak point of all the good people who find preachers so unprofitable, and
who so delight in the sound of their own voices. As evangelizing
agencies they are a failure. They produce no impression on the world.
Men of sense want something more thoughtful, more in accordance with the
facts of life, and the young are driven to the other extreme. I believe
this remark will hold good of most of these super-refined Christians.
They have a wonderful command of Scripture language. They can talk by
the hour, and they are intensely ignorant, as all people who shut
themselves to one book and ignore God's Word in His works must be. They
may edify each other, they certainly have no power of edifying any one
else.
The rules of their Sunday service are--Prayer, singing, comprehensive
prayer, offered up by one of the brethren at the instance of the
presiding brother on behalf of the members of the one body, the
administration of the Lord's Supper, exhortation from or exposition of
the Word by any brother who wishes to respond to the invitation of the
presiding brother, and the Lord's Prayer in conclusion. After the
communion, there is a box placed on the Lord's table to receive, at the
close of the service, the free-will offering of the brethren for the
common good of the Ecclesia in every work of faith and labour of love.
Besides, there is a monthly charge made to each of the brethren which is
handed over to the brother responsible for its satisfaction on the last
Sunday of every month. I find I have omitted to state that one article
of faith is the restoration of the Jews, and the reign of Christ and His
saints upon the earth for a thousand years. Already there has been, as
was natural, division in the camp. The Christadelphians are an offshoot,
as I understand. They are very adventurous people, these
Christadelphians. They welcome strangers in their midst. The original
Ecclesias contend for the application of the principle of separation in
communion worship.
THE CHRISTADELPHIANS.
The love of names is one of the strongest passions of which human nature
is susceptible. In starting a newspaper, in publishing a book, in
opening a shop, a good name is half the battle. Years and years ago
there was an individual advertising his academy as Hogflesh. How
disgusting! Respectable parents objected, and the name became Hoflesh.
A little while since a poor fellow, tortured by the jeers of the world,
advertised that, for the future, instead of bearing the monosyllable
unpleasantly suggestive bequeathed him by less scrupulous or
thicker-skinned parents, he would henceforth call himself, and be called
by others, Mr. Norfolk Howard. (I should not wonder if by this time,
with his new name, the man has married an heiress.) Poor Charles Lamb
once wrote a farce, but as it turned out that the hero of it was Mr.
Hogsflesh, good society would have none of it, and straightway it
vanished into limbo. Our fathers can remember what ridicule was showered
down on Dissenters by the _Edinburgh Review_, and what laughter there was
at them all over the land when the Rev. Sydney Smith told how Mr.
Shufflebottom was ordained at Bungay. It is to be feared that in the
religious world names have had even a greater influence than amongst the
profane. What good men have been persecuted and suffered wrong because
they bore the name of a sect distasteful to an imperious majority! How
the mob have thirsted for their blood! "These are Christians--away with
them to the lions," said they of old Rome. "Down with the Roundheads!"
was the cry of country squire and rural parson when a few devout men such
as Richard Baxter and others more or less known to fame met in a small
room to keep alive the spirit of piety and prayer amongst themselves. It
was the same when Wesley and Whitefield, often at the peril of life,
proclaimed in parishes of England sunk in ignorance Gospel truths. There
are thousands who, like the late Isaac Taylor, of Ongar, could tell how a
"Church and King mob" kept them in perpetual fear, because they were
"Meetingers." There are yet parishes in Suffolk and Norfolk where to go
to chapel is to insure your being despised as a "Pogram," and cut by all
the dignities of the village, even if you have the learning of a German
professor and the piety of a saint. In the Babel of London, however, it
is different; here, there is a rage for new names, and there are
preachers and people ever ready to resort to a new name, as if novelty
were a possibility in our day, after eighteen hundred years of
theological hair-splitting and threshing of straw. The Christadelphians
are the latest production in this way. They meet in Crowndale Hall,
Crowndale Road, St. Pancras Road, every Sunday; in the morning, at
eleven, for the breaking of bread, and worship; in the afternoon at
three, when there is a Bible-class especially for inquirers, when
opportunity to ask questions respecting the one faith is afforded; and at
seven in the evening, when we are told the Word of God is expounded in
harmony with the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of
Jesus anointed. One of the most active teachers is Mr. Watts, late of
Vernon Chapel, King's Cross Road. The Athenaeum Hall, Temple Road,
Birmingham, seems to be the headquarters of Christadelphian publications.
There are published there the _Christadelphian Shield_, the _Biblical
Newspaper_, and the _Ambassador_, monthly periodicals, and other
publications more expensive, and aiming to be standard works.
This, I take it, is the epitome of their faith:--
"One God, the Eternal Father, dwelling in heaven in light of glory
inconceivable; one universal irradiant Spirit, by which the Father
fills all and knows all, and when He wills, performs all; one Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God, begotten by the Spirit of the Virgin Mary,
put to death for sin, raised from the dead for righteousness, and
exalted to the heavens as a Mediator between God and man; man a
creature of the ground, under sentence of death because of sin, which
is his great enemy--the devil; deliverance from death by
resurrection, and bodily glorification at the coming of Christ and
inheritance of the kingdom of God, offered to all men on
condition--1, of believing the glad tidings of Christ's
accomplishment at His first appearing, and of His coming
manifestations in the earth as King of Israel and Ruler of the whole
earth at the setting up of the kingdom of God; 2, of being immersed
in water for His name; and 3, of continuing in well-doing to the end
of this probationary career."
This is the teaching of the new sect. They rejoice in their emancipation
from the bondage of orthodoxy. Mr. Watts says:--"My past nineteen years
of religious life I regard as so much lost time taken up with the fables
and follies of man's fleshly mind, systematized upon a pagan theology;
and although I honestly thought myself right, and strove hard to lead
others, yet I am now fully persuaded it was all done in ignorance of the
true knowledge of God." He tells us the Evangelical party in the Church
or Dissent do not know the Gospel. "Nothing can be more clear," he says,
"than that this (their doctrine of the resurrection) first item of the
Gospel as preached by Jesus and the Apostles does not form any part of
the teaching either of those who pretend to be the successors of the
Apostles, or the sects and parties of Dissenters who have imbibed their
system of theology from the same polluted stream." The doctrine of the
soul's essential and inherent immortality is a pagan myth. For the
heathen there is no future life; for them what Macbeth wished has come to
pass, and life is indeed
"The be all and the end all here."
The mere belief of this doctrine relieves orthodoxy of the perplexing
problem, What becomes of the heathen? and of course strikes at the
foundation of the doctrine of purgatory. Yet we are not to suppose there
will be no punishment for the wicked and the disobedient; they shall
beaten with stripes, and then, according to the righteous Judge, enter
upon that second death state, from which there shall be no
resurrection--an opinion the direct opposite of that of Origen and
Archbishop Tillotson, first promulgated in modern times by Dr. Rust,
Bishop of Dromore. The Calvinistic formula is also, in the opinion of
the Christadelphians, a mere travesty of the subject of the atonement.
As to man in general, he is born to die. God treated the first man
federally. He put him on probation, and in him all his successors stood
or fell. We never read of immortal, never-dying souls in Scripture, and
to foist such a meaning on 2 Cor. v. 8, as that it proves the existence
of a separate state of disembodied spirits, is to handle the Word of God
deceitfully. Once Mr. Watts believed in a kingdom in the sky, a throne
in the heart, a seed of Israel, a New Jerusalem and promised land, all
mystically referring to something at present existing in the so-called
Christian Church. He does so no longer. His eyes are opened, the light
is come, and he and his friends, chiefly juveniles, rejoice; and if they
have the true light, who shall say they have no reason to rejoice?
Farewell, writes Mr. Watts, in a poem considered poetically of doubtful
merit--
"Farewell to the false, I welcome the true,
And begin the year with Christ anew."
This reference to poetry reminds me that the Christadelphians have a
hymn-book of their own, to frame which appears to have been a matter of
no little trouble. With the hymns used by Christian churches in general
they find much fault. They require something manly and robust, whereas
the churches of all denominations rejoice in what is sentimental, and
their songs of praise and devotion are described as "oceans of slops."
Whether the Christadelphians have much improved theirs, I leave the
reader to judge. As a specimen I quote one verse from Montgomery's
well-known poem, "The Grave." In their hymn-book I find it printed thus.
I quote from memory:--
"There is a calm for saints who weep,
A rest for weary Weyyah found;
In Christ secure they sweetly sleep,
Hid in the ground."
At present the Christadelphians do not seem very flourishing. In their
little room--which is miscalled a hall--there are about forty of them of
an evening, quibbling earnestly, and to the best of their ability.
In taking leave of the Christadelphians, let me refer to a passage in our
Church history. It is notorious that the celebrated Henry Dodwell,
Camden Professor of History in the University of Oxford, in order to
exalt the power and dignity of the priesthood, endeavoured to prove that
the doctrine of the soul's natural mortality was the true and original
doctrine, and that immortality was only at baptism conferred upon the
soul by the gift of God through the hands of one set of regularly
ordained clergy.