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"Genuine Christadelphians" We do not belong to the party that either plays with the truth, or doubts the truth, or unsettles the truth by perpetual surmise and so-called "investigation". We belong to those with whom the truth is a settled thing, and whose sole aim is to apply it, either in the enlightenment of the stranger, the comfort of the believer, or the purification of the obedient. We endorse absolutely the position taken up by Dr. Thomas, when he said:- "Christadelphianism is a term representative of the system of the truth taught by the written word concerning Christ and his brethren. It represents the truth disinterred from the rubbish of clerical and denominational tradition, and sufficiently developed for all practical purposes connected with the remission of sins and eternal life. This is the great spiritual feature of the time of the end -the great light which shines upon the dark peoples of Britain and America...The scheme of human redemption has been brought out in all its particulars and scriptural proportions. It is not now a matter of search or discussion. What it is, is known to the initiated, who need not now to waste their energies in vain speculations and bootless investigation. They know what the truth is, and need not vex themselves in discussing the vagaries of mere novices who, like silly women, are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth... They repudiate everlasting investigation, which implies search after the unknown. Periodicals that are always investigating are nuisances and not worth the postage. The apostacy abounds with these. They discuss everything and settle nothing.. Such investigating periodicals are of no use to genuine Christadelphians. These wisely seek to digest what they already have, that they may not remain babes and weaklings all their lives." Robert Roberts, 'The Christadelphian' October 1892 page 388. "an afflicted few" We would rather walk with an afflicted few in the Scriptural purity of the hope of Israel (with all that that involves) than run with a prosperous multitude in the loose and polluted way of the natural man. The looseness may be convenient for the time being. But there hastens a time when it will be highly inconvenient. When God speaks again by Christ returned, the inconvenience of this adhesion to His holy narrow ways, will turn to easement, faciliation, felicitation, joy, and gladness. What are His holy narrow ways? This is not an open question. If it is so with some, it cannot be with those whose minds have been made up for more than forty years, ever since Dr. Thomas pointed out these holy ways in the Scriptures. Dr Thomas sent them to the Scriptures in the understanding thereof, and in the daily company of the Scriptures they have remained, and are therefore rooted and grounded and planted and built up immoveably, knowing what they are about, and why they present an indomitable front to all suggestionists and investigators of various shapes and colours, who either cannot see or think they see farther, or think they discover flaws in the Christadelphian "platform", or who imagine they have discovered improvements in the position originally defined in Dr Thomas's writings... resolute adhesion But experience over a wide and constantly fermenting field shows that unless there is resolute adhesion to the position of Divine wisdom recovered with much difficulty during the last two generations, there is danger of easily losing it all: not all at once, but point by point-one point at a time till all is gone. How many are now drowning in the dark and turbid waters of human folly who were once on the safe and sunny terra firma of Divine truth. They became engulfed through an inveterate propensity for dabbling in the polluted flood. They should have kept away from the dangerous banks. Though we are to "prove all things", we are not to be always proving them: having once proved them, the next thing is to "hold fast that which is good". This is the attitude of the Christadelphian, from which it cannot be drawn or driven while the present editor lives. There are a thousand voices against it, and they are always filling the air, but wisdom is wisdom, however faintly heard in the world-hubbub. The hubbub will die down wonderfully by-and-bye: wisdom will then have the field all to itself, under the patronage of the resurrected multitude of the friends of God, headed by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets. Robert Roberts, 'The Christadelphian' November 1896 pages 428/9. |