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their profession, did they not manifest a mind opposed to the scriptural fear of the LORD, and to that reverence for his word and kingly authority, which is inseparably connected with the knowledge of his Name. But herein their profession is indeed awfully impeached. They continue deaf to the plainest instruction and reproof of that word, which marks HIм set as KING upon the holy hill of Zion,maintaining a kingdom that "is not of this world," and that admits not in its concerns any interference of human authority or wisdom. They have no ear for that voice which calls his little flock-in every place-to be followers of the first Churches of GOD, which in Judea were in CHRIST JESUS;-to come out of the midst of Babylon and all its antichristian abominations, and to be separate, as a people holy unto the LORD;-to receive at his mouth-from his Apostles-all the simple but divine rule of ordinance and discipline, by which the first "Churches of the saints" were regulated in their fellowship. They practically disown the authority of that rule, as if it were antiquated-obsolete—and not suited to Christians now. They even oppose all serious attention to it, as legal—as a Galatian error. But the real "comfort of the HOLY GHOST" never can be disjoined from "the fear of the LORD," Acts ix. 31. and the reverential trembling at HIS word. True charity—or love-must ever bind disciples to withdraw from the fellowship of those who persist in this attempt to separate what God hath joined together. 2 Thess. iii. 6, 14.

L. (page 549.)

"A good conscience." Vain is every interpretation of this expression, but that which coincides with the idea expressed by the Apostle in Heb. ix. 14. "How much more shall the blood of CHRIST, who through the ETERNAL SPIRIT offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the LIVING God."

Α

BRIEF ACCOUNT

OF

THE PEOPLE

CALLED

SEPARATISTS

[First Published 1821.]

TO THE READER.

THE following brief account was lately drawn up at the desire of a continental writer, who wished to be furnished with it for insertion in one of his publications. The person to whom this desire was communicated, thought it, in some views, unwarrantable to refuse compliance with it: and somewhat similar considerations induce him now to lay the account, without any alteration, before the British public. He does not expect that it will rescue the sect described from the grossest misrepresentations. But it may prove the occasion, under the blessing of God, of leading the attention of one or another individual to principles of divine importance.

The narrow limits, within which he was necessarily confined, precluded all idea of enlarging upon any of the topics introduced; or of bringing forward from the scriptures the grounds of those opinions and practices which are stated. To the scriptures, however, of the New Testament, he refers as the one authority on which they rest. Let those who regard that authority reject whatever is unsupported by it.

A BRIEF ACCOUNT,

&c. &c.

ABOUT eighteen years ago a few christians in Dublin, most of them at that time connected with the religious establishment of the country, had their attention strongly directed to the principles of christian fellowship, as it appears to have subsisted among the first

disciples in the apostolic churches. They perceived from the scriptures of the New Testament that all the first christians in any place were connected together in the closest brotherhood: and that as their connexion was grounded on the one apostolic gospel which they believed, so it was altogether regulated by the precepts delivered to them by the apostles, as the divinely-commissioned ambassadors of Christ. They were convinced that every departure of professing christians from this course must have originated in a withdrawing of their allegiance from the King of Zion,-in the turning away of their ear from the apostolic word: and that the authority of this word, being divine, was unchangeable; that it cannot have been annulled or weakened by the lapse of ages, by the varying customs of different nations, or by the enactments of earthly legislators.

Under such views they set out in the attempt to return fully to the course marked out for christians in the scriptures of the New Testament; persuaded that they were called not to make any laws or regulations for their union, but simply to learn and adhere to the unchangeable laws recorded in the divine word. Their number soon increased; and for some time they did not see that the union which they maintained with each other, on the principles of scripture, was at all inconsistent with the continuance of their connexion with the religious establishment of the country, or other religious societies differently regulated.

But in about twelve months from the commencement of their attempt, they were convinced that these two things are utterly incompatible; and that the same divine rule, which regulated their fellowship in the gospel with each other, forbade them to maintain any religious fellowship with any others. From this view, and the practice consequent upon it, they have been distinguished by the name of Separatists.

They are a very small sect; very little known, and less liked: nor do they expect ever to be numerous or respectable upon earth. Their most numerous church (assembling on the first day of the week in Stafford Street, Dublin,) consists perhaps of about one hundred and thirty individuals. They have about ten or twelve smaller churches in different country parts of Ireland: and within the last two years a church in the same connexion has appeared in London, assembling in Portsmouth Street, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.-It may be here needful to remark, that according to what they have learned of the scriptural import of the term Church, even two or three disciples in any place -united together in the faith of the apostolic gospel, and in obedience to the apostolic precepts-constitute the church of Christ in that place.

With respect to the tenets and practices, by which they are distinguished from most other religionists, in these countries, the following particulars may be noticed.

They hold that the only true God is made known to men exclusively in the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ; so that those who believe the divine testimony there revealed know the true God, but all others however religious and under whatever professionworship they know not what, an idolatrous fiction of their own

minds. They never therefore speak of religion or piety in the abstract as a good thing; conceiving that false religion-particularly under the christian name-forms one of the most awful displays of human wickedness.

They hold that the distinguishing glory, in which the only true God has made himself known, consists in the perfection of righteousness and the perfection of mercy exercised by him in the closest combination and fullest harmony, as the Saviour of sinful creatures and the justifier of the ungodly, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;-through that propitiation for sin which He has made by his obedience unto death in the place of sinners, and which his resurrection from the dead proves to have been complete and divinely accepted. They hold therefore that all solicitude or effort of the sinner to do any thing, or to get any thing, for the purpose of making his peace with God, and obtaining the forgiveness of his sins, must originate in the ungodliness of his mind, arrogating to himself that work, which the Son of God came into this world to perform, and which it is declared He has finished.

They hold that the forgiveness of all sin-acceptance in the sight of God—and eternal life-come to the guiltiest of sinful men as such, and are assured in the divine word to every one, without distinction, who believes the testimony there delivered concerning Jesus of Nazareth. They hold, therefore, that salvation is brought to the sinner with the discovery of that divine truth ;—not by any inquiries of his own after it, or endeavours of his own to obtain it, but in opposition to all his own ignorance of God and rebelliousness against him; -a salvation, which is from first to last the exclusive work of God the Saviour.

They consider the revelation made in the gospel, not as any means afforded to sinners for enabling them to save themselves,-much less as any instrument designed to moralize and reform all the world; --but simply as a divine testimony of that salvation, wherewith God himself saves those whom he has ordained to eternal life out of a sinful world :—as well as the instrument whereby he calls them to the knowledge of his name, and to the enjoyment of that blessedness of which He makes them partakers in his Son Jesus Christ.They hold that the only good and sure hope towards God for any sinner is that, which is immediately derived to the chief of sinners from the belief of this testimony concerning the great things of God and his salvation ;-considering as vain, delusive, and ungodly, every hope, which men derive from the view of any supposed circumstances of favourable difference between themselves and the worst of their fellow-sinners. And as they understand by the faith, with which justification and eternal life are connected, nothing else but the belief of the things declared to all alike in the scriptures; so by true repentance they understand nothing else but the new mind which that belief produces. Every thing called repentance, but antecedent to the belief of the unadulterated gospel or unconnected with it, they consider spurious and evil.

The belief of the revealed truth, and the new mind consequent upon it—(a mind of absolute dependence upon God, of reverential

rejoicing in him, and of unreserved devotedness [subjection] to him) -they consider as the sole work of God [the work solely of God] in his people, both in the first production of their faith, and in their subsequent continuance in it :-while they hold that it is by his revealed word the Spirit of God works in them both to will and to do. They acknowledge God as the sole author and agent of every thing that is good; and maintain that every thing which comes from the sinner himself—either before his conversion to God or after it— is essentially evil.-The absolute and total evil of fallen man they consider as manifested-especially-in the contrariety of his ways and thoughts to the thoughts and ways of God revealed in the scriptures.

They hold that the subjects of Christ's kingdom upon earth shall be-to the end of the world—a despised and suffering people, hated by all men for his name's sake, just in proportion as they manifest the genuine characters of his disciples; and that the apostolic word comes to them at this day, containing the commandments of the Lord to them for their profit and for his glory, with just the same divine authority which it possessed when the apostles were personally in the world. They consider the idea of any successors to the apostles, or of any change in the laws of Christ's kingdom, as utterly antichristian. They have therefore no such thing among them as any men of the clerical order; and abhor the pretensions of the clergy of all denominations, conceiving them to be official ringleaders in maintaining the antichristian corruptions, with which Europe has been overspread under the name of Christianity.

Considering their agreement in the one apostolic gospel as the great bond of their union, they acknowledge themselves called to regard each other as all one in Christ Jesus, brethren beloved for the truth's sake, and on a perfect equality in the concerns of his kingdom. The expression of this brotherly affection they hold to be essentially connected with the most steadfast opposition to every thing contrary to the purity of the truth, which may at any time appear in their brother; as well as with the freest communication of their worldly goods for the supply of his real wants. They acknowledge it to be utterly inconsistent with this, and with the most express precepts of Christ, for any of them so to lay by a store of this world's goods for the future wants of himself or his family, as to withhold what he possesses from the present necessities of his poor brethren. In this and in every thing else—they conceive the real principles of Christ's kingdom to stand in direct opposition to the most approved maxims of this world.

They come together on the first day of the week, the memorial day of Christ's resurrection, to shew forth his death-the one ground of all their hope-by taking bread and wine, as the symbols of his body broken and his blood shed for the remission of sins. In their assembly (which is always open to public observation) they join together in the various exercises of praise and prayer,-in reading the scriptures,-in exhorting and admonishing one another as brethren, according to their several gifts and ability,-in contributing to the necessities of the poor, and in expressing their fraternal 20

VOL. I.

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