Would that the writer and all saints could remember this “incapacity, as it would enable them often to recall their past ways, and exercising self-judgment on themselves, bring them back to the Lord, and to the church in sackcloth and ashes; but alas we know that when the eye is blinded because they “would not” hearken, a state is super-induced of which it can be said they “could not,” after which the fearful sentence at any time may be passed “they shall not;” and then the judgment seat of Christ is the only resource where all shall see eye to eye, where all delusion shall be dissipated, and where alas many will see how much has been lost in eternity, by that which commenced in time, with a “would not.”
These events in Plymouth had a great influence on all who had adopted the views of “the Brethren.” The course pursued by Mr. Darby and his adherents was viewed by many, as subversive of the grounds of Christian fellowship, and necessitating a sectarian bond of union, in some truth or truths, rather than in Him who is emphatically the Truth, and not merely a portion of it. The whole transaction acted on the minds of the wise as a solemn warning; the voice that had long been speaking in gentle whispers from the sanctuary, now spoke in thunder, calling on all to examine their ways. They were led to see the precipice over which their cherished hopes of peace and power, might at any moment be thrown headlong, unless they repented and did their first works. There was much public confession, much private sorrow; the iron had entered into the soul, and many withdrew farther and farther, from that exclusiveness of spirit and narrowness of mind, which had perpetrated the evil, or sought to justify the course pursued at Plymouth.
The result of all that had taken place was, to develop, under the direction of Mr. Darby and those acting with him, a system that, denying the sufficiency of the blood as the bond of Christian fellowship, and the power to maintain it, took upon itself virtually to set up tests of communion, and therefore, bearing witness against itself as having gone back into the sectarianism out of which it was boasted they had come; and he who once gloried that he could welcome a Roman Catholic and hold fellowship with him at the Lord’s table, if he were on the foundation, ends in 1845 with refusing all fellowship with saints from whom he differs in no vital matter whatever, and saints borne witness to even by their opponents. Here again we would remind all, that at this time there was no charge whatever made of heresy or false doctrine,—nothing had been brought forward against those separated from, touching even remotely the foundation
