Edward Dennett

“ We have often sat and gazed in astonishment at some whom we have heard attempting to minister in the Assembly. We have often thought that the Assembly has been looked upon by a certain class of ignorant men, fond of hearing themselves talk, as a sphere in which they might easily figure without the pains of school and college work” (p. 29) . But if the Holy Spirit speak by whom He will, who is Mr. Macintosh to condemn? Hath not God chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise? ”

“ It thus happened to myself on one occasion that I desired, in the exercise of Christian fellowship, to break bread with “the Brethren.” I spoke to one who was prominent among them, and said, “I might be with them on Lord’s-day; could I break bread?” His reply was “I fear not; personally, I should have no objection―but there are others who would object strongly.” “On what ground?” “Not,” he replied, “that you are not a Christian, but because you are connected with evil.” ”

“ But through the precious atoning death and justifying resurrection of Jesus, I do see how God is perfectly righteous in justifying the believer. The law could not be made more honourable than by the death of Jesus Christ the Lord. God did not justify sin, but punished it in His Son. The sentence was executed to the utmost. The old creation thus came for ever to an end in the grave of Christ: but in the resurrection of Christ, God gives me a new life in perfect everlasting righteousness. ”

“ Macintosh so pathetically describes—have been filled with ardent zeal to propagate a system from which all their importance is derived; some, losing faith in all forms of Christianity, have abandoned even the Christian profession, and are seen in all parts of England, swelling the number of that saddest of all classes of men—backsliders; while a few have gone back to the churches whence they were seduced, and rejoice to-day at their escape from the bondage of a system which was fast destroying the peace of their souls. ”

“ It is no wonder to us that this new doctrine completely horrified some of his followers. In utter consternation and alarm they now remonstrated with him, but he held to and reiterated his new views. They then called upon “the Brethren” “to judge” this evil. They said, “We judged Mr. Newton, and here is our chief leader propounding similar heresies to those we were taught to believe that he held. In very consistency we ought to judge Mr. Darby.” ”

“ Macintosh should be present in any of the “assemblies,” it is very seldom, indeed, that any other brother is moved by the Spirit to teach or exhort―that, in fact, they have regular, we might say stated, ministers (excepting in those places where there is an utter absence of teaching power) as much as any other denomination of Christians. Liberty of ministry is, to speak the truth, nothing but a high sounding phrase, which conceals an order of ministers who put forth claims to authority, and even infallibility, which would not be tolerated in any Christian community outside the Church of Rome. ”

“ In other words, on the exercise of faith the blood of Christ cleanses him from sin, and the obedience, the merits of Christ imputed to him, constitute him as a righteous person before God. Our hymns are full of this doctrine, as for example:―
“Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress.”
But according to “the Brethren” we have all been mistaken, and they utterly deny the imputation of the obedience of the Saviour’s life―His righteousness to the believer. His life on earth was, they say, in no sense vicarious. ”

“ Had the Christians there not the Divine presidency, if “the brethren” have? Wherefore the need then of the apostolic rectification? Of his telling them how many should speak at a time, and what special gifts they should cultivate?
Once more, if there be this Divine presidency, we ought, surely, to expect order. We are told again and again that Jesus is Lord over His own house, and that He exerts His authority in the Assembly. If he does we shall surely see its effects. Or, to put it in another way, He either does or does not rule in the Assembly. If he does, it will be an effective rule ”

“ Newton has been considered and denounced as the arch-enemy of the Church of Christ—and of the Brethren in particular. Thus Mr. Darby said in one publication, “I have not the least doubt, from circumstances I have heard lately, of the authenticity of which I have not the smallest doubt, that Mr. Newton received his prophetic system by direct inspiration of Satan;” and, speaking of his teaching concerning our Lord, he says, “I reject Mr. Newton’s doctrine as blasphemy, as I ever did.” ”

“ All who do not abhor the whole system and all connection with it are already entangled and defiled. It is, I am satisfied, a mere net of Satan (though many Christians be entangled in it) . 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. ”

“ If we have not, then it is your instant duty to reject it and to show, in order to destroy, our error. The times are dark and threatening, and the darker they become the more important it is to take heed to God’s Word. ”

“ That there are sincere and good men among the Brethren no one will attempt to deny. But when we see good and devout men―men whose practical walk reflects so much of the image of Christ―our sorrow is the deeper that they should be associated with errors in practice and doctrine which have tended so much to destroy the unity of the Church, and thereby to dishonour their Lord. ”

“ God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof.’ But as regards man, this is wisdom — divine wisdom — ‘the fear of the Lord;’ and divine understanding in man is ‘to depart from evil.’ But let me ask you, what clue is there here to guide to a solution of his difficulty about church position? About which, after all, there is no difficulty, if people will take the plain guidance of New Testament Scripture. ”

“ As to anything like Divinely-authenticated ministry, with all their boastful claims, the Brethren have no superiority over other Christians; and in regard to rule and order, it will appear to every one competent to form a judgment that they are inferior to most, because they have rejected human order, and have not substituted in its place that which is Divine. ”

“ Those that lived before, and those that live after― (for, according to the Brethren, the especial time of the tribulation comes after the Church is rapt silently and secretly away,) may be believers; but since the Holy Ghost was not given before Pentecost, and departs with the Church, they cannot be regenerated in the same sense and way as Christians of the present dispensation. It is true that the Saviour says, “that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. viii. 11) ”

“ Newton, with his followers, held and proclaimed the manifest coming of Christ for His people after the development of Antichrist. With these widely divergent views—and their still more widely divergent consequences—entertained and spoken of, there could not be much real harmony between the two sections. Still, with the avowed principles on which the Brethren met, there could be no justification for division, neither could any charge of heresy be fastened upon what was after all only a difference in interpretation. ”

“ Our place, our standing before God, is no longer in flesh. It is in Christ. Christ, as man, has taken quite a new place that neither Adam innocent, or Adam sinner, had anything to say to. ... Christ has taken this place consequent on putting away our sin , on having glorified God as to them, and finishing the work. He has taken it in righteousness, and man in Him has got a new place in righteousness with God.” [9] This necessitates a distinction between the life of Christ here and the life of Christ above. ”

“ All, therefore, that we ask from your hands is a patient hearing and an unbiassed judgment, for, as the Apostle says, speaking on the authority of Divine inspiration, “we can do nothing against the truth―but for the truth.” ”

“ As a community, they make no provision for evangelisation, and, as far as I can gather, never dreamt of sending a missionary to the heathen. “Brethren” finding themselves in a foreign land might engage in preaching the Gospel in their individual capacity; but, as a body of Christians, they own no responsibility in this matter. Thus, Mr. Macintosh says, “There is a very material difference between those occasions on which the Assembly is gathered for worship and the special services of Brethren. ”

“ I ask you to note the contrast between their activity towards sinners and saints. We are admitted to be saints; and yet all their resources are to be brought to bear upon us, to bring us into their fold. But we are warned that towards sinners, lost souls, they have no corporate responsibility—that whoever seeks to save them, does it in his individual capacity. ”

“ A specimen of the manner in which certain Scriptures are depreciated I take from Present Testimony: “This epistle (the Hebrews) is rather a discourse, a treatise, than a letter addressed, in the exercise of apostolic functions, to saints with whom the writer was personally in connection. The author takes rather the place of a teacher than of an apostle.” [2] There is great advantage (to “the Brethren”) in this mode of treatment. ”

“ Dorman’s language—and for twenty-eight years he was with “the Brethren”—is a whit too forcible. For it is not often that one meets with an argument so untenable and so speciously put; nor outside of the so-called Church of Rome are we accustomed to meet with such pretentious claims.
(2.) The second point in their practice to which we advert is their worship and ministry.—And we shall most satisfactorily deal with this, if we touch upon their component parts. (1.) Every Lord’s-day they break bread—according, as they allege, to apostolic practice. ”

“ Darby says, “Christ was tempted in every way apart from sin.” [5] This surely, is not the equivalent of the Scripture statement that “He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.” Mr. Darby implies that sin played no part in the temptations to which the Saviour was subjected; the Scriptures teach that Jesus endured every possible human temptation, and overcame them all, and thus was without sin―two very different statements. ”

“ Worship and ministry is held to be under the presidency of the Holy Ghost.—Each one gives out a hymn, reads a chapter, or teaches as he is led by the Spirit at the time. This is a cardinal point. Thus Mr. Macintosh says, “We have often been asked to adduce Scripture in proof of the idea of Divine presidency in the assembly. ”

“ The few who were pining after a higher life, and after a brighter manifestation of the power of the Spirit in their practical walk, belonged to no particular denomination, but were scattered through all. ”

“ I feel you have departed from those principles by which you once hoped to have effected them (his purposes) , and are in principle returning to the city from whence you departed. Still, my soul so reposes in the truth of your heart to God that I feel it needs but a step or two more to advance, and you will see all the evils of the systems from which you profess to be separated, to spring up among yourselves... ”

“ We have now followed “the Brethren” in their divisions until the present time, and we see that “Brethren” pure and simple are the Darbyites, i.e., those who hold to the teaching and are in fellowship with Mr. Darby. For they reject as evil the Bethesda section—as they do all Christians who meet in any other way. For the rest of our lecture, therefore, we shall confine ourselves to this supreme section—those who, for the sake of convenience, are called Darbyites.
↑ We cannot express too strongly our sense of the injustice with which Mr. Newton has been treated on this question ”

“ May the Lord have mercy on such, and open their eyes, that they may see from whence they have fallen, and get a true view of the Assembly of God in contrast with the most attractive of the systems of men.”—P.31. ”

“ Some brethren who have long been out of fellowship in spirit with the gatherings in London, although breaking bread at East Street, Walworth, have at length, in self-will, opened a meeting for breaking bread at Hill Street, Peckham ”

“ Macintosh, of Bristol, and circulated by the Brethren in thousands throughout the land, entitled, The Assembly of God. The grounds on which Mr. Macintosh advances the claim are, as far as I understand him, that the Brethren alone meet in the name of Jesus, and in the power of the Holy Ghost. I beg pardon for using the word “meet:” he expressly disclaims it. Let him speak for himself: “As Jesus is the only centre, so the Holy Ghost is the only gathering power. The one is as independent as the other. ”

“ One of the leaders in London wrote and said that in commencing the meeting at Peckham “the sin of Korah was acted over again.” He adds, “Nothing has appeared in my eyes more deliberately wicked since I have known brethren,” and he cites the Scripture as applicable to the case, “God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.” ”

“ Darby would not come to Bristol again unless they refused fellowship to two Christians who had recently met with them, and unless they condemned Mr. Newton’s views. “The demand made on Bethesda was, that there should be a Church investigation of Mr. Newton’s views, and a Church condemnation of them, and Mr. Darby expressed his determination to remain in separation from them till that was carried out.” [2] The Brethren at Bethesda refused compliance with this demand on the ground that they were not called upon to condemn opinions which had not come before them in their Church capacity. ”

“ To be consistent, therefore, demands the laying aside of the hymn-book as well as the “man-made minister.” But if I am told that these gifts are not now claimed―and Mr. Darby, in Brethren and their Reviewers, expressly admits that some are not continued at the present time—then, I ask, is it not to throw dust in simple people’s eyes when these chapters are adduced in justification of their position? The fact is “Brethren” know as well as we, that the gifts of the Spirit were the especial accompaniment of the laying on of the Apostles’ hands (See Acts viii. 17; xix. 6, etc.) ”

“ He does so the more readily, as there is no single publication (as far as he is aware) that aspires, however humbly, to cover the whole ground of Plymouth Brethrenism.
Dr. Carson and many others have done good service in exposing and refuting the heresies and procedures of the system. But the author is not acquainted with any tractate, like the present, which a minister, for instance, could place in the hands of any of his people who might have been disturbed by the insidious assaults of the Plymouth Propaganda―as dealing with the whole question. ”