Is it wrong to attend two (or more) different churches?

But it seems "Brethren" insist on "separation from all other communions." Not so: we advise no Christian to leave even that which we believe has no authority whatever, till he is sure that it is a duty. Never do we think it right to employ fear or favour, which is not the case with our adversaries. Each Christian is exhorted to seek light from God and a single eye. It is the fact, no doubt, that, as the nature of the Church's worship or ministry is gathered from Scripture, no faithful man helps on that which is inconsistent with the truth. But all is left to conscience. There is no rule, expressed or understood, which forbids "Brethren" to hear a sermon or join in a service elsewhere. Only it is clear that the Christian who comes to the conclusion that Anglican or Dissenting rites involve the dishonour of God's Spirit, or the denial of truth, is not free in conscience to participate. Compulsion, however, would be altogether wrong. Thus conscience and liberty are both preserved. Men who have no fixed principles may consistently perhaps go to the Anglicans on Sunday morning, to the Presbyterians in the evening, and to Methodists or others during the week. But do the Christian Observer and the Record endorse such laxity? Do they blame "Brethren" for first seeking to ascertain God's will as to christian communion, and then refusing to swerve from it? The Anglicans, it is to be supposed, count the Dissenters wrong, as the Dissenters do the Anglicans: why are we then to blame if we judge them both by the only unerring standard? We do not complain if people judge us, or our ways, or our writings, by the same rule: only it were well to examine all fairly and even lovingly as in the sight of God. If we are sure we are right in going back to scriptural fellowship, rather than cling to innovations of Protestant times, are we to hide from our brethren the truth we know? Has not God's word the same claim on His children in matters of communion as in doctrine or in personal conduct? To us it seems that the real sectarianism consists in despising God's will about His Church, not in abandoning sects because of our faith in His word.

I have heard - I do not know whether it be true - that it has been said that the brethren in England act on this ground. If this has been said, it is simply and totally false. There have been new gatherings formed during my absence in America which I have never visited; but the older ones, long walking as brethren, I have known from the beginning have always received known Christians, and everywhere, I have no doubt, the newer ones too, and so in every country. I have known individuals take up the thought, one at any rate at Toronto, but the assembly always received true Christians: three broke bread in this way the last Lord's day I was in London. There cannot be too much care as to holiness and truth: the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of truth. But ignorance of ecclesiastical truth is not a ground of excommunication, where the conscience and the walk is undefiled. If a person came and made it a condition to be allowed to go to both, he would not come in simplicity in the unity of the body; I know it to be evil, and cannot allow it, and he has no right to impose any conditions on the church of God. It must exercise discipline as cases arise according to the Word. Nor, indeed, do I think a person regularly going from one to another systematically can be honest in going to either; he is setting up to be superior to both, and condescending to each. That is not, in that act, "a pure heart."

There cannot be too much care as to holiness and truth: the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of truth; but ignorance of ecclesiastical truth is not a ground of excommunication when the conscience and walk are undefiled. If a person came and made a condition to be allowed to go to both, he would not come in simplicity in the unity of the body. I know it to be evil, and cannot allow it; and he has no right to impose any condition on the church of God. It must exercise its discipline, as cases arise, according to the word. Nor, indeed, do I think a person regularly going from one to another systematically can be honest in going to either; he is setting up to be superior to both, and condescending to each. This is not, in that act, a pure heart.

No one has a right to impose conditions on the assembly prior to being received. It is wrong for a Christian to go systematically to the brethren and to a church, I presume, on a regular basis. Reception must not be an excuse for looseness. But in avoiding that we must not fall into excessive separation from true believers.

Various informal services were held to meet the desires of the people for instruction and prayer. To some of these services my father occasionally went, though they were not in connection with the Brethren. This was contrary to his usual habit, for he felt that having found the way which he believed to be most according to the Word and the will of God, he must cleave to that alone as to worship and discipline.

There is still one idea I wish to point out. Mr. O. wants to keep himself free to join the dismembered church. I am united to all Christians as a member of one only body, and am happy to be united with them, wherever this would not call me from the path traced out in the Word. Disobedience is not communion, and communion is not to be found in disobedience. Some souls will be more scrupulous than others in this respect; each conscience must be left free. I do not join the system I have left, and do not build up again what I destroyed, to make myself a transgressor, but I rejoice to meet every child of God in the path of obedience to His will, wherever it be. My reader will find that Mr. O. has added a word as to what makes the link of his churches. In his first pamphlet he said: "United by the same worship, by the same faith" - what evidently does not make them one, not recognising the unity of the church at all. Now he adds, "and by the same Spirit"; but this alters nothing; they are still independent churches respecting each other. It is not the one church; they are still separate associations, whether Mr. O. likes the word or not, and each one acts in its own sphere as an independent body, and the case being such, judges of the other's discipline. The word, "and by the Spirit," where it now stands, has hardly any sense, except it be an exceedingly vague one.

Let us conceive a godly churchman or dissenter to put this plain question: " How is it that you, who are so free and hearty in receiving Christians in the name of Christ, will not come with me to my church or chapel?" The answer is, 11 On your own principles, as a Protestant Christian, you can come here with a good conscience, where we are sure the one desire is to be subject to the Lord and His word, in the unity of His body, and in the liberty of His Spirit. You surely acknowledge it is no sin to meet as we do, according to scripture, and therefore you can meet with us. Bat 1, for my part, am clear that it is unscriptural to desert the scriptural ground for that of dissent or Anglicanism, and therefore it is not want of love but fear of sin that keeps me from going with yon, who do not pretend to be meeting on the ground of God's assembly." Surely he is a bigot or worse who would urge or expect me to join him against my positive conviction, that in so doing I should sin against God. Sin is a man doing his own will, or another's, which is not God's. If you ask me to depart from what I know to be the will of God, it would of course be sin in me to comply. It is not only a thing that is sinful in itself, but it would be most especially a sin in me, because I know, if you are ignorant, that it is infidelity to the Spirit's operation in the church.

When Israel came into the land, they were not to offer their sacrifices, or to worship, at any place they might select, but at the place where the Lord should put his name only. Jerusalem was the place whither the tribes went up. Put yourself in the position of a believing Hebrew on a solemn feast day in Jerusalem — one of the three thousand converted by the first sermon of Peter. Multitudes from all quarters might be assembled around him — Jerusalem filled with worshippers — while he would be apart from all that which attracted them. But would not his soul have many a struggle in keeping away from the festive and religious throng? Would he not have almost appeared an enemy to his country and to the temple? But was it really so? Think farther of the contrast he must in his own soul have seen between the upper chamber, or any other unpretending locality, and the splendid temple. Must it not have needed much simple faith in Jesus, to meet together to break bread and worship with a number as unaccredited as himself, without any visible priest to order their worship, any sacrifice, any incense, any altar, any laver? Would not the multitude keeping holy-day give as it were the lie to the worship he had been engaged in, as if it had been no worship at all? Surely there is great force in the words, "not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is."

Is there not here a wonderful lesson to be learned by each Christian? Is it not often said that once saved, the Christian can decide where and how he shall worship, according to his personal tastes? Can anything be further from the truth?

Serving the Lord with your spouse must mean having the same exercise as to the place to enjoy the privileges of Christian fellowship, and being committed to the gathering together of the Lord's people as seen in the Scriptures. Then together you can serve the Lord and bring up children with the same conviction and not be divided, so that one goes to one ‘type of church’ and the other to another with the conflicting loyalties this brings when children come along.