God means another, and the Church means another. Still, I confess that, to me, no language could more plainly show than that cited the identity of the blessings of the patriarchs with those we enjoy; that they, with ourselves, are members of the mystical body of Christ.
(3.) Their doctrine concerning the Scriptures is again connected with that of the Church.―A large portion of the Gospels is Jewish,―was never intended for the Church. Thus, if Matthew xxiv. is cited to show that God’s people will be on the earth during the last troubles, you are at once told that this chapter be longs to the Jewish Remnant. The phrase, “Jewish Remnant,” indeed, is the key to their hermeneutics.
The Psalms all treat of this, though, of course, it is conceded that there are moral applications to ourselves. According to the Brethren, indeed, the sacred literature of the Church is scarcely more than the epistles, or, rather, some of the epistles, of Paul. Hence, too, the apostolate of Paul is deemed to be of a higher kind than that of the other Apostles. A specimen of the manner in which certain Scriptures are depreciated I take from Present Testimony: “This epistle (the Hebrews) is rather a discourse, a treatise, than a letter addressed, in the exercise of apostolic functions, to saints with whom the writer was personally in connection. The author takes rather the place of a teacher than of an apostle.”[1] There is great advantage (to “the Brethren”) in this mode of treatment. Press home upon them some argument from the Scriptures, and you are told that you are ignorant of its application. Like Marcion of old―and, indeed, the Sadducees of other date―rejecting, or assigning to a lower place, what does not suit them, they find it easy to fortify their position from their own revised
- ↑ Vol. xi., p. 348. J. N. Darby is, I believe, the author of the paper. I may also refer generally to Kelly on the Gospels, etc.
