Page:Groves - Darbyism - Its Rise and Development and a Review of the Bethesda Question.djvu/29

 introduced as a ground of communion, a test appointed by man; and those who saw whereunto this evil precedent would lead, set their faces stedfastly to resist it. The enforcing of such a line of action was possible only on the overthrow of those principles of fellowship which all still theoretically maintained.

More or less for some years, however, the notion of a corporate standing, and of a united action amongst all who held certain views, had taken the place of that simple and blessed principle of church fellowship once recognised, which enabled the saints of God to meet together on their own responsibility to their Lord, apart from any human rule or creed. The idea of being a body corporate and of acting as such, now filled the minds of some, who before would have shunned the thought; and whenever a corporate responsibility to man is assumed, it will ultimately set aside real responsibility to the Lord, and lead those under its influence to act on the judgment of others, apart from knowledge or conscience; which is subversive of all morality, and of all allegiance to Christ.

God so ordered it, that the anathemas which had divided the assemblies in Plymouth, should fall upon the saints assembling at Bethesda in Bristol, who had been gathered through the ministry of Messrs. Müller and Craik; with whom up to this time Mr. Darby had held full communion. As Bethesda formed the centre around which the storm was to gather, so was it in the grace of God, to become the bulwark of the original grounds, on which at the commencement “Brethren” met, of receiving all who love Christ. There was an open table for all saints, and an open ministry to all gifted of God, and there was also what most gatherings so sadly stood in need of, pastoral oversight and co-operation, touching the well-being of the saints.

From the prominence that Bethesda has occupied in these matters, a prominence alike unsought for and undesired, it will be necessary to say a few words in reference to it. The church meeting there did not own its origin in any wise to those who had been connected with Plymouth, though brethren coming from thence found a ready welcome to their fellowship and their ministry. Messrs. Müller and Craik had come from Devonshire to Bristol in 1832. When labouring together in Teignmouth, Mr. Müller had commenced the weekly breaking of bread connected with an open ministry, more than three months before any thing of the kind was known in Plymouth, and even while the majority of those who afterwards took the most prominent place there, were still members of the establishment, and when Mr. Darby, who had just arrived from Ireland, was preaching in the