GLANTON AND ALNWICK, 1908
GLANTON AND ALNWICK, 1908
Matters which arose in 1908 in connection with the two neighbouring meetings of Glanton and Alnwick, resulting in what has often been referred to as “the Glanton trouble”, served to emphasise the important principle that responsibility to the Lord for the testimony in each city or place attaches to the assembly in that place. This is in keeping with the instruction in the first epistle to the Corinthians, which is addressed to “the assembly of God which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours”.
The facts were as follows. In the town of Alnwick serious personal differences had arisen among those breaking bread. It may here be remarked that Matthew 5: 23, 24, and Matthew 18: 15 - 17, indicate the means by which personal differences between brethren are to be settled, and it is the responsibility of the spiritual, and ultimately of the assembly in the locality, to see that these means are adopted wherever such differences arise. The verses that immediately follow the passages cited above, that is Matthew 5: 25, 26, and Matthew 18: 21 - 35, shew what serious consequences to an individual may result if the divinely ordered procedure is not followed, but in following the procedure a befitting spirit of uprightness, meekness and forgiveness is essential. In the unhappy case of the meeting at Alnwick, however, the differences were not settled, with the result that eventually it divided into two parties, each of which appealed for the fellowship of gatherings around. It was not a case of one party being committed to some error in truth, or wrong principle, from which the other party withdrew in faithfulness to the name of the Lord, but simply of disunity,
resulting from personal differences, of so serious a character that it was impossible for the brethren to go on together. Some of those who had ceased to break bread at Alnwick started attending the meetings at Glanton, a few miles away, and were eventually received by the brethren there to the breaking of bread, ignoring the responsibility that attached to them, with the rest of their brethren at Alnwick, to humble themselves before the Lord in Alnwick in relation to the confusion that existed there, and to adopt the means provided in the word of God to bring about reconciliation. Those who were thus received to the breaking of bread at Glanton were subsequently sent back to Alnwick as the recognised company in that place. The infringement of divine principles involved in their action was pointed out to the brethren at Glanton by many, but as they maintained it and claimed that it must be recognised as done in the name of the Lord, others supporting them in the position they took up, a separation among brethren became inevitable.
The following letters by Mr. C. A. Coates, written some time after the actual occurrences, will help in the further understanding of the principles that were at stake.
(undated).
... The question is raised by you as to whether the breach of 1908 was not caused by some “misunderstanding”. It appears that it is still your conviction that it was so. I would most gladly do anything possible to remove misunderstandings.
You say, “I do not see disorder if, say, a saint in Laodicea or Thyatira, feeling the condition of things, and having read the instructions of 2 Timothy 2, withdrew and was received at Philadelphia. I cannot see that Philadelphia would be interfering with the Lord’s prerogative in receiving such a one”.
If such a one had gone to Philadelphia it seems to me very probable that the brethren would have said something like this to him: - “Dear Brother, we are deeply interested in you, as being of the assembly in Thyatira, for we love the brethren everywhere, and we feel a special care for those who are comparatively near to us, as you are. We are conscious that the spiritual power we have is only little, but this makes us desirous of clinging tenaciously to every intimation of the Lord’s mind that we can gather from His word. And we should like to put before you what we have learned from Him”.
“For a long time we have had a copy of a letter written by the apostle Paul, and we recognise that the things he wrote are the Lord’s commandment to us. We have gathered from that letter that assembly exercises are to be taken up and worked out in each locality where the saints are found, for not only was it addressed to ‘the assembly of God which is in Corinth’, but to ‘all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’. This has taught us to recognise the assembly of God as in local responsibility in each place where saints are found, and that ‘in every place’ the name of our Lord Jesus Christ can be called on as One who is available to direct His saints, and to adjust them locally. Indeed we count it a most precious privilege that we can thus refer directly to the Lord in our own locality, and obtain His grace and help in seeking to keep His word and not to deny His name. We thankfully own that we are set in Philadelphia in responsibility to maintain here all that is due to the Lord, and also to avail ourselves of all the resources and sufficiency that is in Him for us. We feel it to be a great privilege that in our local exercises we have not to look to our brethren in Sardis or Smyrna, but directly to our beloved and only Lord. We have proved His grace and faithfulness and sufficiency in our local needs,
and we earnestly and affectionately entreat you not to call upon us, who are of another assembly, but to call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that He may show you His mind and act for you in the locality in which He has set you”.
We may say, further, that we have just recently received from Patmos a copy of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him, and we have been intensely interested in John’s letters to the seven assemblies in this district. These have greatly confirmed us in what we had previously gathered from Paul. We have been greatly comforted by having a direct communication from the Lord to us locally. It has given us the sweetest sense of His love and concern, not only for the assembly universally, but for His saints in each local assembly. This is exceedingly precious to us, and we earnestly desire that you should prove the value of it in your own locality. We know something of your exercises, for we have read the epistle to the angel of the assembly in Thyatira, and it encouraged us much to know that the Lord was taking direct account of you in your locality even as He did of us in ours. We counsel you to attend to what He says. He is addressing you in your local responsibility, and your blessing will lie in owning this, and in obtaining His grace to answer to His mind.
“As to what you say about withdrawing from the assembly in Thyatira, we do not understand what you mean. Are you not one of those of whom the Lord has spoken as ‘the assembly in Thyatira’? This is how He regards you, and therefore how we regard you. We could understand your having to withdraw from iniquity, and to purify yourself from vessels to dishonour, for we, too, have read Paul’s second letter to Timothy. But we believe it to be impossible for you to withdraw from the assembly in Thyatira so long as you are resident there. The Lord is unquestionably addressing you there, and though we have observed with sorrow that there is much in the assembly there of which He does not approve we have also noted that there are some exercised souls there whom He has addressed as ‘the rest who are in Thyatira’. Why cannot you take up your exercises with them?”
“If you have not been able to get on happily together with them you need the Lord’s grace locally to enable you to do so. He wants you to recognise His voice, and to obtain His grace for the adjustment of your local differences. We are ready to help you in every spiritual way that is in our power, but we believe the greatest help we can give you is to exhort you to be cast upon the Lord that you may prove His sufficiency in your own locality where He addresses you. He has reserved to Himself the authority to adjust and regulate things amongst you at Thyatira; He has not committed any charge as to this to us. We believe it to be your great privilege to recognise His direct authority where you are, and to obtain His personal direction and grace for every difficulty and exercise in regard to your walking together there. We believe it to be His holy and perfect ordering that it should be so”.
Are you not prepared to accept that the above is according to Scripture? Then why accept another kind of action which is not at all in accord with it? If there is a divine order, that which is not consistent with it must be disorder. To acknowledge that there is a divine principle which should govern our action, and in practice to go contrary to it, is a course which I find it difficult to understand.
C.A.C.
May 6th, 1930.
I gather from Deuteronomy 21: 1 - 9 that certain conditions may be found “in the land” which are altogether abnormal, and which by their seriousness affect the whole of God’s people. The matter has occurred in a certain locality, but it is a concern for the elders and judges universally, and for all the people; it is not merely local. I judge that we have instruction here as to a case which, in its bearing and issues, cannot be confined to the locality in which it arises, but which has to be viewed as affecting the responsibility and fellowship of saints generally. Something fatal to the enjoyment of the land has taken place, and this is a matter which affects all God’s people; all have to prove themselves to be pure in the matter.
The gravity of such a case required that it should not be left undetermined; it had to be definitely taken up somewhere, and it was ordained by God that the nearest city should do so. It was not left to any city to act that might feel inclined to do so; responsibility to do so on behalf of God’s people generally was definitely assigned to a particular city. Divine support can always be counted on when responsibility is taken up according to the mind of God.
The case contemplated here is not one of mere local unhappiness, but of the working of things that are fatal to a fellowship which is according to God. In the former case the Lord must be waited on to grant local adjustment and recovery. In the latter the whole of the people of God have to clear themselves of what is evil.
There may be much local friction without the definite action of an evil principle, but if, for example, clericalism as at Plymouth, or independency as at Bethesda were definitely working they would be things in regard to which all the people of God must prove themselves pure. A local breach amongst brethren raises the question whether it is a case of local confusion which the Lord may adjust locally, or whether it is the evidence that saints are standing in faithfulness against principles which are really fatal to spiritual fellowship. In either case it seems to me that Deuteronomy 21 appears to give the mind of God as indicating that any necessary steps for proving the saints generally to be pure in the matter are assigned in the wisdom of God to those nearest. It is a principle which J.N.D. insisted on, and I am not aware that any other principle has ever been put out by intelligent brethren as having divine sanction. It may be that brethren have not always been consistent in acting on it.
In a case of local disagreement, without the setting up of any principle contrary to those which govern the fellowship generally (as at Alnwick), matters must be left for the Lord to adjust locally, brethren giving such help by prayer and counsel as they are enabled to do. In a case where principles contrary to the truth are the cause of local division, and this is fully ascertained, it is the responsibility and privilege of the brethren to identify themselves with those who are seeking to maintain what is due to the Lord, and to repudiate what is contrary. There is no interference whatever with local responsibility in either case. If the nearest meeting has no special responsibility in such cases, who has? To leave such matters altogether undetermined would be fatal to true fellowship either locally or generally.
I return herewith the little paper on Local Responsibility, which has been for many years out of print. It contains much that is important, and which I should fully maintain, but obviously it does not touch the principle which you write about, which was not at that time in question. Indeed Glanton was held to be quite in order in declining, for the time, to receive from either party in Alnwick. It was when they absolved saints from their local responsibility in Alnwick by receiving them at Glanton that a serious issue was raised.
C.A.C.
The following paper, by Mr. James Taylor, “The city nearest to the slain man”, further elucidates the principles set out in the passage in Deuteronomy 21 already alluded to in the preceding letter, and is of great value in the matter of local responsibility, which, as already stated, was the issue in the Glanton and Alnwick controversy.