by

A. J. Gardiner (1884 - c. 1972)

JND Letter 6

Pau, February 19th, 1864.

MY DEAR BROTHER,—I have received your letter, but not the pamphlet, which I shall carefully read when I shall have the opportunity. In my former letter I could only speak of general principles, as I had not the correspondence. I can still only refer to the

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contents of your letter, as I have not the pamphlet, which is not so easily forwarded as a letter. But your letter itself involves so many important principles that I answer in certain respects, though I have not the correspondence. I must avow to you that it does not furnish me much hope of any issue. I am sometimes surprised at the little apprehension brethren have of the bearing of their acts. You ask, Is it a bond of discipline that holds the body together? I answer, in practice undoubtedly. The unity of the, body is in itself immutable. It is divinely maintained and for ever. But the manifested unity of the body here below is maintained by discipline, and cannot be without, though in secret it be God’s power which does so by its efficacious working. What has created Nationalism, that is, the dispersion of saints in a crowd of worldly professors, but the absence of discipline—of maintaining by it the sanctity of the Lord’s table? But, to come more directly to the shape in which this question applies to you; suppose you let in deliberately the Mormons, how can other assemblies walk with you? Are you to impose the reception of wickedness on all the church of God? Suppose you deliberately admit fornicators, are we to continue in unity? You will say, You have no right to suppose such things. I have a perfect right to judge a principle by plain strong cases, but I have chosen one here which has been publicly insisted on by a meeting standing on the principle you have adopted. Suppose you receive blasphemers and heretics, are we to remain united with you?

It is anxiously insisted on, in a tract published by Yapp, that no assembly can be defiled by receiving evil, but only the individuals who accept it. But your letters, as does that tract, make independent churches, each acting for itself. If this be the case, the unity which constituted the whole being of the brethren is wholly given up; that for which I left the Establishment

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is wholly gone. All this I reject wholly and absolutely. The circumstances I do not pretend to know, for I was in America; but if I have rightly gathered them,... you have judged the conduct of the brethren in L. without having heard what they have to say. I understand the breach arose between you and—by reason of your reception of —. With the main facts of his case I am acquainted, for I took part in what passed. And now allow me to put the case as it stands as to him; I put it merely as a principle. He (or anyone else) is rejected in L. The assembly in L. have weighed (and I with them) the case, and count him either as excommunicated or in schism. I put the two cases, for I only speak of the principle. I take part in this act, and hold him to be outside the church of God on earth, being outside (in either case) what represents it in L. I am bound by Scripture to count him so. I come to —: there be breaks bread, and is—in what? Not in the church of God on earth, for he is out of it in L., and there are not two churches on earth, cannot be, so as to be in one and out of another. How can I refuse to eat with him in L., and break bread with him in —, have one conscience for L. and another for ——; believe that the Spirit judges one way at L., another way at —? It is confusion and disorder....

But your letter apprises me that you have already taken the ground of neutrality; but neutrality between Christ and evil is worse than anything. “He that is not for me is against me,” says Christ. The evil at B. is the most unprincipled admission of blasphemers against Christ, the coldest contempt of Him I ever came across. All their efforts to excuse and hide it only make the matter worse. All who do not abhor the whole system and all connection with it are entangled and defiled. It is, I am satisfied, a mere net of Satan (though many Christians may be entangled in it). Every question of churches and of

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unity disappears before the question of B. It is a question of Christ. Faith governed my path as to it, but I have seen its fruits in America, the West Indies, France, Switzerland, and, in a measure, in India. I have seen it the spring and support everywhere of unprincipledness and evil, and all who were under its influence turned from uprightness and truth. I have found persons unknown to each other, and strangers to our conflicts in England, unite in testimony that they could get nothing honest from those who were connected with it, or who did not openly reject it all. Wherever the difficulty has been, persons going on badly, and in the flesh, were induced to fall in with it or follow in the line on which you have entered.

But before I go further on this point, allow me to recur to your letter. You say, Your arguments are without force if the acts of the L. brethren are not in accordance with the Lord’s will; they could not in that case be by His authority; and this it is which has been the question with us. Who is the judge of whether these acts were so or not? This only means that you at — consider yourselves competent to judge the brethren in L., though you were not there to know what passed, nor, allow me to think, have not been in any way fully informed of what took place. You must forgive me if I think this somewhat questionable. You will say, Are our consciences to be bound by the action of the brethren in L.? I answer, prima facie, certainly, or there can be and is no common action. I admit remonstrances—and if it comes to an absolute necessity through deliberate wrong—breaking with a gathering, but slighting the judgment of another body in ordinary cases is denying its being competent to decide for Christ and with Christ, and asserting your own competency to judge it without being acquainted with what passed. You say, We have our own responsibilities to the Lord; others cannot measure them. What are you doing as to L.? You have set aside

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the judgment of L. as null and nought before the Lord. You do not say the individuals have not the Spirit, but you have rejected their corporate action. How can the two bodies get on together? You receive a person because he is in communion in L., that is, you own the body as a competent witness of Christ’s mind, without saying it is infallible. You own the body, its acts; you wish to be in communion with it; you must then recognise its other acts. I recognise the full liberty in you, as having also the Spirit as a part of Christ’s body, led to act by it, in remonstrating or enlightening, but not to disown it on your own authority, and then to pretend to own it still, and speak of being in communion with it.

But what you say as to Bethesda, though only, as I have said, what I expected, shews your position far more clearly. You must not deceive yourselves, dear brother; where Christ is in question there is no middle ground. You have separated yourselves from the brethren in the course you have taken; you think yourselves wiser than they. I have seen these pretensions elsewhere: I know their result. It is in vain to say you do not. If you did not, you would not act differently from them. You cannot remain alone, though you have really taken the position of an independent church. But the question is largely before the saints now, Is union founded on truth or not? The scripture tells me it is. You have abandoned that ground with the pretension to keep it better than others. You are not the first. I do not trust you to do so. You have given up your testimony against evil, but pretend to keep it out. I do not trust your pretension to do so. Here I must speak plainly, because it is not brethren but Christ who is in question. I see the worst and most ruinous effects springing up daily from what I judged in principle sixteen years ago. In this path you will soon be the active supporters of indifference to Christ’s glory, and

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covering and excusing the dishonour done to His name. I can easily suppose you will not believe me in this. I only answer, if you continue in it you shall see. I can only say I have seen enough to be content to be burned, with God’s grace, rather than enter into it. I am quite aware too these will count what I say as to B. a spirit of party and so forth. I let them say it; the Lord will judge all that, but I know for myself what I say, and why I say it....

I regret and mourn that you should think it a human rule to break with those who receive and countenance blasphemers, and seek to hush and cover it all up. To me what you call a human rule is the first obligation which rests on me as a Christian. Wisdom in discipline all may call in question; fidelity to Christ is at the root of all our conduct. Your letter produces the effect in me of your having become an independent church—so called. Of course, I have no such principles, but what you say as to B. is the first step, and in fact, save God’s gracious hand, the whole way to the coldest contempt of Christ I ever came across.... God will judge who has been faithful to Him, or those it condemns. Where that road leads I have no doubt. Satan is making a great effort at present to shake brethren as to these points, but this only makes me more firm.

J.N.D.

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Many other letters by Mr. Darby, which are to be found in the published volumes, “Letters of J.N.D.” could profitably be referred to, but the above are considered sufficient for the purpose of this history. They shew clearly what were the origin in fact, and moral basis, of the “Open” fellowship, which commenced with Bethesda. There was the grossest indifference to Christ in the refusal to exclude from fellowship those who broke bread with one who taught evil as to His Person. Moreover, the failure

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to recognise that true Christian fellowship is universal, and can only be maintained by practically refusing evil wherever it appears, has resulted in the meetings identified with such “Open” fellowship being practically independent companies, so that a person excluded from fellowship at one meeting can be, and often is, received at another meeting in the same fellowship. This is a practical denial of the truth of the one body, although the claim has often been made that those connected with the fellowship in question, as separated from clerical systems around, meet together on the ground of that truth. It is not without significance that ten years or so before the Bethesda matter arose, some who were meeting together in Dublin stated, in reply to an enquiry by Mr. Darby, that they met on the ground of all being the children of God, and that he then pointed out to them that that gave them no true basis on which to refuse fellowship with evildoers.

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