Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
Ultimately, the Vision of the Age is a test to see if you are in, or out. If you are in, you get the Special Blessing. If you are out you are either marginalized or expelled.
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STEM Publishing is an Exclusive site, which will never provide the other side of the story.
Interestingly, Wm. Kelly was the "Ron Kangas" of the Darby world, who edited and compiled all of Darby's work. Kelly was loyal to Darby for decades, yet was excommunicated by the true Darby "
Park Street" clan (could be considered the Blendeds of old.) His expulsion was every bit as absurd as Newton's and Muller's.
Here's the short story, just to show the fruit of exclusivism, and how dangerous it is to side with them. As Darby lay on his death bed, old Dr. Cronin, who was the very first "Brethren" even before Darby, happened to break bread with some seeking believers in a small English town (I think named Ryde.) Anyways, Ryde had an "official" assembly, recognized by Brethren headquarters, but were a sorry bunch in disarray, beset with legal wrangling, and not the kind of assembly one might take a friend to.
Even though Dr. Cronin had sided with Darby the exclusives in the aftermath of the Newton-Muller bloodbath, no one who breaks the rules was exempt from punishment. In Cronin's case, he violated the law of
one church one city by breaking bread with an unsanctioned assembly. This was officially the unforgivable sin in exclusive circles,
an overt attack on "
the ground of the one body."
Ironsides in his
Historical Sketch p. 85 says this of Cronin,
Quote:
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Finally the patriarchal offender was excommunicated and for months set back with tears streaming down his face as his brethren remembered the Lord, and he, the first of them all was in the place of an immoral man or the blasphemer... Is it any wonder that some critic said of the Brethren that they are "people who are very particular about breaking bread, but very careless about breaking hearts."
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The great teacher Wm Kelly protested the excommunication, so he got ousted too! Dying Darby, too feeble to resist, muttered, "It must be the will of the Lord!"
Baloney! Many well-known exclusives, including Andrew Miller the historian, along with numerous assemblies, rejected the harsh "discipline" of the self-serving
Park Street oligarchy "playing church," resulting in yet another division.
Seeing how pathetic the "true" Darby lineage has become, perhaps Darby was right to declare "
It must be the will of the Lord!" Both Nee and Lee claimed that these same Brethren were the present day "fulfillment" of the church in Philadelphia "
brotherly love" of Revelations chapter two.
Huh?