Does LSM Hold to Apostolic Succession?

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

They were maintaining a system in which independent thought was forbidden. Nee had been the seer of the revelation, Lee was his closest disciple, and we were supposed to shut up, unless we were quoting Nee or Lee, or (judiciously) Penn Lewis or Darby or some other supporting work. It's a pretty effective system, actually, in that it has survived and spread.

Anyway, maybe all we need to mention is that Nee's thought process was strongly influenced by both Darby and Penn Lewis and simply leave it at that. That may be saying enough, right there.

I am wondering if Nee got caught by a kind of spiritual "meme" which spread to us, through Lee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

So what is similar from the Plymouth Brethren and Guyon/Penn-Lewis' inner life teachings? In the PBs we see an exclusivism which led to numerous splits. Who is in, and who is out? One word: control.

In the inner life/holiness group, we see a stress on subjective experience. Emotional response is guaged carefully, the objective word of truth is relative to our experience. What we "enjoy" becomes our reality, versus what God said.

"…I made an end of Madam Guyon’s ‘Short Method of Prayer’ and ‘Les Torrentes Spirituelles.’ Ah, my brethren! I can answer your riddle, now I have ploughed with your heifer. The very words I have so often heard some of you use, are not your own, no more than they are God’s. They are only retailed from this poor Quietist; and that with the utmost faithfulness. Oh, that ye knew how much wiser is God than man! Then would you drop Quietists and Mystics together, and at all hazards keep to the plain, practical, written word of God.” The Journal of the Reverend John Wesley, 1742

“…I have industriously guarded them from meddling with the Mystic writers, as they are usually called; because these are the most artful refiners of it that ever appeared in the Christian world, and the most bewitching. There is something like enchantment in them. When you get into them, you know not how to get out. Some of the chief of these, though in different ways, are Jacob Behmen and Madame Guyon. My dear friend, come not into their secret; keep in the plain, open Bible way. Aim at nothing higher, nothing deeper, than the religion described at large in our Lord’s Sermon upon the Mount, and briefly summed up by St. Paul in the 13th chapter [of the First Epistle] to the Corinthians….All the high-sounding or mysterious expressions used by that class of writers either mean no more than this or they mean wrong. O beware of them! Leave them off before they are meddled with.” Letter from John Wesley, 1772

"The grand source of all her mistakes was this, the not being guided by the written word. She did not take the Scripture for the rule of her actions; at most it was but the secondary rule. Inward impressions, which she called inspirations, were her primary rule. The written word was not a lantern to her feet, a light in all her paths. No; she followed another light, the outward light of her confessors, and the inward light of her own spirit." Wesley's introduction to a biography of Madame Guyon.

So we end up with a system in which we can have the Lord telling us what to wear today, or how much milk to put on our cereal, according to our 'inner light', with everything under the 'light' of the Maximum Leader. In other words, do what you want, as long as you let the Big Brother do what he wants. You have absolute freedom to follow your spirit, as long as you are absolutely subject to the leading of the supposed apostle in his 'recovered church life'.

But in neither case, yours or your apostle, is the word of God the guide. Rather, the guide is subjective, fallible, human feeling. I have just posted on the thread "The Psalms are the word of Christ" to show where this leading can take you.