circumstances in which we find ourselves placed, when the pure gold has been dimmed, and the silver mixed with dross. In this, independency is no more a denial of the oneness of the whole body of Christ, than the claim of independency, necessarily made by each Christian man, can be construed into a denial of his individual fellowship in the body. Each knows that he will have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ; and the sense of an individual responsibility, necessitates an individual line of action, knowing that to his own Master he stands or falls. The word hereafter will not be, To the church that overcomes; but, To him—to the individual saint. It is “to him” that all the glorious promises here are addressed, for all local church standing ceases, when brought into the presence of the Throne, where each will have his place assigned in the body, according to a rule of individual faithfulness, and not according to the measure of any collective faithfulness here, except as such bears on individual faithfulness to God, in the local relationships in which His providence may have placed him as a saint.
Such were the catholic grounds on which those called “Brethren” sought to realize a fellowship, that should, in its largeness, be able to receive and welcome “all saints.” These were the principles recognized among them at the commencement; principles which were held, not as theories in the mind, but as holy practical obligations in which they sought to walk, associated as they were with devotedness to God in themselves, and with the real desire to carry them out in grace and forbearance towards others, each seeking to have fellowship, as far as possible, with those from whom he might differ. While thus holding the truth they had been taught, in love, they were owned and blest. But it is easy to begin with principles of unsectarian catholicity when those who hold them are few and feeble, and difficult to maintain them when holpen with a little strength. To hold the unity of the saints as a theory is one thing, to walk and act in the daily forbearance of grace required to keep it, is quite another. At the outpouring in the day of Pentecost, “all that believed were together,” and “they continued steadfastly in the Apostle’s doctrine and in fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers.” “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one mind, neither said any that aught of the things that he possessed were his own,” and “great grace was upon them all.”
A few weeks or months passed away, and we read of murmuring in the Church; for, as if to give a warning voice at the very commencement of the dispensation, we see the enemy coming in and sowing discord, in that
