We will now glance at an article on " Plymouth Brethrenism," in The Southern Review, Baltimore, by the editor, Dr. Bledsoe, an Episcopalian Methodist.
" The Society, or Order of Christian Men," he says, " usually styled the Plymouth Brethren, has already, and almost without observation, spread over the face of the civilized world. It seems, in fact, to have stolen a march on Christendom, and must now, whether for good or for evil, be acknowledged as a power in the present awful crisis in the world's history, or tremendous conflict between the powers of light and of darkness. That it is felt to be such a power, is evident from the fact of the controversy about Plymouth Brethren coming up all over the Protestant world just now, and by the innumerable articles, pamphlets, and volumes which this wide spread controversy has called forth. We have placed at the head of this article only three references to the literature connected with the controversy; but, if we had so chosen, we might easily have embraced in our list the titles of more than a hundred volumes of the same literature. Meager as it is, however, it is sufficient to answer our present purpose; which is merely to discuss the following question: Who are the Plymouth Brethren? and what is the character of their theology and religion? ...
" It is the duty, as it has seemed to us, of every watchman on the watch-towers of Zion, to qualify himself to return true answers to these questions. We have endeavored to discharge this duty as honestly as possible, by going to the fountain-head for information, instead of catching up and repeating, as so many have done, the hasty, unfair, and false assertions of unscrupulous sectarians. While engaged in this study, we have encountered many statements, even in religious journals, which, for unscrupulous and reckless mendacity, can vie with the most shameless assertions of a corrupt secular and partisan press. This has filled us with an inexpressible sadness; for alas! what chance has justice in this little world of ours, when our religious guides and teachers can so far forget the sacred claims of truth, as to allow carelessness, or indifference, or prejudice, or malignity, to preside over the formation and publication of their opinions?"
In speaking of the rashness of Brethren's critics, he discusses at some length a most unfortunate mistake which was made by Dr. Dabney of the Union Theological Seminary of Virginia; and as it illustrates the mistakes of the Brethren's reviewers in general, we will briefly notice it.
Dr. Dabney supposing that a periodical, published in New York, and entitled, Waymarks in the Wilderness, was conducted by a Plymouth brother, and its papers supplied by his brethren, wrote what was called at the time a most powerful article against " The theology of the Brethren." It appeared in The Southern Presbyterian Review, for July, 1872. It is characterized as " bitter and hasty," and by "his well-known ability in hurling fierce polemics against books of which he knows next to nothing." He speaks of Mr. James Inglis, the editor of Waymarks, as " the chief doctrinal representative of the Brethren in the United States." The calm and meek reply of Mr. Inglis, who was a well-known Baptist minister, ought to have covered the doctor with shame -shame for his utter carelessness, to say nothing of his groundless malice. In the personalities of the Review," says Mr. Inglis, "there are mistakes which are the result of misinformation regarding the editor of Waymarks.... But in justice to our contributors on the one hand, and to the Plymouth Brethren on the other, it is proper to say that no one connected with that sect ever wrote a line for our pages. Our contributors are chiefly pastors of our Reformed Churches; most of them well known, though they do not claim consideration for what they write on ecclesiastical grounds."
Dr. Dabney, it appears, had never read the writings of the Brethren, but having read Waymarks in the Wilderness, and " taking it for granted that it was the organ of the Brethren, he gives them the benefit of his most particular thunder. But, as it turns out, all this hot and heavy thunder of his falls, not on the Brethren at all, but only on the very pastors of our Reformed Churches, in whose defense he entered upon his crusade against the Brethren. It falls, in other words, not on the adversaries whom he had marked for destruction, but upon the very friends he had undertaken to defend against these adversaries."
We will only notice Dr. Dabney's accusations against the theology of the Brethren, as it calls forth a just remark from the editor of the Review, and a most edifying extract from one of the Brethren's books on the subject. It is difficult, we confess, to account for the head of a theological seminary of the present day publicly asserting that " the teaching of the Brethren depreciates the dispensation of the Holy Ghost." Dr. Bledsoe affirms that all who have read their books must know that, " their appreciation of the Holy Spirit's presence, power, and guidance, is the grand and distinctive peculiarity of their theology, whereas, it is the peculiar deficiency in the teaching of all our theological seminaries, as well as in the theological literature of the Christian world." The following impeachment of that literature, by Mr. Kelly, appears to us as true as it is terrible, as sad as it is solemn. He says:
" This at once leads me to feel how solemn is the sight which everywhere meets our eyes in Christendom. If there be one truth more than another that has been abandoned, it is the personal presence of the Holy Ghost. There is no adequate testimony to it whatever; and this is not said unadvisedly. I say it not merely of that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth, but of smaller cities which kings have built for themselves to reign over, or those yet smaller cities their subjects love to reign over as rivals and an improvement on both. I say it of the Protestant bodies, no matter what, no matter where, national or dissenting. It is a remarkable fact, that if you look at their confessions of faith, many of which were drawn up when men, no doubt, were far more simple and thorough-going than they are now-at the time of the Reformation, or at any subsequent great crisis-if there be any truth more especially absent from every one of these confessions that has come under my own observation, it is the testimony to this truth. You will find other truths; the necessity of being born again, the value of the work of Christ, the glory of His person as God and Man. Not that they deny that the Holy Ghost is a divine person-surely they do not. But I am not speaking of His personality, or deity either, but of His personal mission to the earth, and of His presence now with Christians both individually and collectively-the presence of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Is it to be found anywhere acted on or confessed? Where is it set forth? I have never met with any approach to it even in my reading; and of course I do not wish to give anyone the impression that I have not read a good deal upon the subject. I have searched diligently for it, and I have desired to learn what is really held by Christians universally; but never, in any one confession, creed, article of faith, or rule, have I discovered the smallest expression of that which is evidently the great characteristic truth of Christianity-that truth which ought to be continually sounding out, and continually in practice within the church. Is it not, then, a solemn consideration, that this, the glory of the Christian, the strength of the church of God, and the essential privilege for which it was expedient that even Christ should go away, is never attested in any one system of Christendom known to us?"
In this way the editor of the Review exposes several of the unfair critics of the Brethren. He gives his own independent judgment, having read their books, and then quotes from them in refutation of the false assertions made against their authors. But of all such writers, he speaks most strongly and severely of Dr. Reid, a Presbyterian minister in Edinburgh.
"There is a class of critics," he says, "who have examined, more or less extensively, the voluminous literature of the Brethren, but not with a view to form a fair and just estimate of its value, or of the theology therein set forth. The worst of this class have, indeed, searched their writings only to draw thence, by means of great perversions and misrepresentations, the weapons of their destruction. At the head of this class of venomous critics Dr. Reid deserves to be placed; for no one, perhaps, who has ever pretended to write an account of a religious society, has exhibited greater unfairness, or perpetrated greater injustice, than has this learned doctor of divinity in his attack on the Plymouth Brethren. His work is entitled Plymouth Brethrenism Unveiled and Refuted, but it is, in fact, Plymouth Brethrenism veiled in misrepresentation, as gross as pestilential damps and dark as night, and then beaten with his theological club. We know of nothing worse of the same kind connected with the early history of Methodism."
Several pages are occupied with the discussion of Dr. Reid's charges against the Brethren, but it would be out of our line to follow them. We would only add, that, having read the book when it appeared, we then thought that the doctor could have taken no pains to look into the Brethren's books before he wrote his own. We were deeply grieved to see such gross misrepresentations published by a Christian minister against his Brethren in Christ whom he had never seen. We were also disposed to think it had been written hastily, without proper information, under strong prejudices, but with a measure of honest conviction that the Brethren were not safe religious guides; therefore he felt that it was his duty to raise his warning voice and acquaint his people with the dangerous character of their new neighbors.
But such productions, generally speaking, defeat their intended object; and none ever more so than Dr. Reid's. Brethren's meetings have sprung up in Scotland, " like the grass, and as willows by the water-courses." Twenty years ago there were only two or three small meetings in private houses, and now there are something like eighty; and nowhere throughout the country has the Spirit of God been more manifestly at work than in the immediate neighborhood of Dr. Reid's congregation. Many have been gathered out from the world by the preaching of the gospel in-doors and out-doors, and not a few have been emancipated from the bondage of a legal system.