Separating From Christendom

This group, including Henry Grew, started a study of the Bible with the aim of conforming their lives and activities to its counsel. Their studies rapidly led them to a greater understanding of Bible truth and caused them to espose the errors of Christendom. For example, in 1824, Grew wrote a well-reasoned refutation of the Trinity. Note the logic in this passage from his writings: " 'Of that day, and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.' [Mark13:32] Observe here the graduation in the scale of being. Man, Angels, Son, Father..... Our Lord teaches us that the Father only knew of that day. But this is not true, if as some suppose, the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit are three persons in one God; for according to this [teaching, the Trinity doctrine,] the ... Son knew it equally with the Father.

Grew exposed the hypocrisy of clergymen and military commanders who made a pretense of service to Christ. In 1828 he declared: " Can we conceive of a greater incongruity, than for a Christian to go from its closet, where he has been praying for his enemies, and command his troops to plunge the weapons of death with fiend like fury, into the hearts of those very enemies? In the one case, he happily resembles his dying Master; but whom does he resemble in the other? Jesus prayed for his murderers. Christians murder those for whom they pray."

Even more forcefully, Grew wrote: " When shall we believe the Almighty who assures us that he is 'not mocked?' When shall we understand the nature, the genius, of that holy religion which requires us to abstain from even the 'appearance of evil?'... It is not a libel on the Son of the blessed, to suppose that his religion requires a man to act like an angel in one relation, and allows him to act like a demon in another?"

Next time:Eternal Life Not Inherent