(2.) This will be better understood―for the two things are connected―if we proceed to their doctrine of the Church. According to the Brethren, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and Joshua, Samuel and David, and all the Jewish saints, have no part in the Church of Christ. The Church “was formed by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.”[1] What the precise standing of the Jewish saints might be is not declared; but they do not share in the peculiar blessings of the Church,―are not members of the body of, and, therefore, are not one with, Christ. The Church commences its existence on the day of Pentecost,―or, according to some, not till the death of Stephen (being “Jewish” before that time),―and concludes her earthly career when she is caught up to meet her Lord in the air. Those that lived before, and those that live after―(for, according to the Brethren, the especial time of the tribulation comes after the Church is rapt silently and secretly away,) may be believers; but since the Holy Ghost was not given before Pentecost, and departs with the Church, they cannot be regenerated in the same sense and way as Christians of the present dispensation. It is true that the Saviour says, “that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. viii. 11); also “that there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God,” &c. (Luke xiii. 28); that Paul is directed to say that “they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Gal. iii. 9); but, on the authority of Messrs. Darby and Kelly, you must not believe that the patriarchs are of the Church, for the kingdom of heaven means one thing, and the kingdom of
- ↑ See The Rapture of the Saints, etc. , by J.N. Darby; also “The House of God,” etc. , in Present Testimony, Vol. xi., p. 40.
