The Religious Life of London

by J. Ewing Ritchie

THE SANDEMANIANS.

In this our day one of the expiring sects of Christendom is that of the Sandemanians. At no time have they been a very powerful denomination either from their numbers, their influence, or their wealth. They have never yet made their mark upon the world, nor are they likely to do so now. The late Professor Faraday was one of their elders, and for a time conferred on them a little of his world-wide reputation; but one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one great man confer greatness on a church. The eccentricity of men of genius is proverbial. Sharp, the engraver, believed in the lunatic Brothers and the impostor Joanna Southcote; Irving in the gift of tongues and the power of working miracles; Swedenborg in his faculty of piercing the veil which envelopes all sublunary affairs and realizing what we are taught to consider will only be revealed to us when the

heavens and earth shall pass away as a scroll, and time shall be no more. Even our great emancipator Luther, the Moses who led forth—to borrow a figure from Cowley—our modern Israel from its house of bondage, and brought them into the promised land, testified to a visible appearance of the Prince of Darkness, to get rid of whom he had to dash his ink-bottle, a type, as it always seems to me, of the victory yet to be achieved by means of print over the devil and all his works. But Faraday is gone. No longer can the Sandemanians boast the possession of one of England’s greatest philosophers; and they have now little power of influencing or predominating in society. They seem to me a very plain and humble folk, aiming at keeping up in their own hearts Christian love, and in their own circle primitive practices, rather than in aggressive movements, without which no church or denomination can expect in this busy age long to live.

There is one Sandemanian church in London, up in Barnsbury, at the corner of one of the streets running out of the Roman Road. The original church was founded in the year 1760, in the Barbican. City improvements necessitated its removal to this site,

where it has now been erected four or five years. It was in the old chapel that Professor Faraday used to take his turn in preaching. In the new chapel his widow is still one of the worshippers. As you pass the place you would not see anything very extraordinary. It is a neat, simple structure, of white brick, with no architectural pretensions of any kind. It only differs from other places of worship in having no board up announcing to what denomination it belongs, nor the name of the preacher, nor the hours of assembly, nor where applications for sittings are to be made, nor to whom subscriptions are to be paid. Indeed, the only reference at all to an outside world seems to consist in the putting up a caution intimating that the building is under the guardianship of the police, and persons evilly disposed had better mind what they are about. Thus, and thus only, is the recognition of an outer world lying in darkness and needing the true light of the Gospel in any way acknowledged. They have service twice on Sunday, in the morning and afternoon, and a week-day meeting on Wednesday evening. They have no Sunday or day-school, no tract distribution, no district visiting, no minister, and no other means of acting on the world or forming religious opinion. Indeed,

I fancy they are averse to anything of the kind. “We are utterly,” I read in one of their publications, “against aiming to promote the cause we contend for either by creeping into private homes or by causing our voice to be heard in the streets, or by officiously obtruding our opinions upon others.” Even if you enter their place of worship there is no pew-opener to show you to a seat. They claim simply to obey the commands of the Bible implicitly, to be a church founded for mutual edification and love—nothing more. The stranger who for the first time attends will be struck with the absence of the pulpit, instead of which he will find two large desks, one above the other, in which are seated three or four elderly persons; the attention which is paid to the reading of the Bible; the illiterate way in which those who preach and pray do so; and the length and dulness of the service. The morning service, for instance, begins at eleven, and is never over till half-past one. No wonder the Sandemanians are not a vigorous sect. I believe they have but one place of worship in England, three or four in Scotland, and more, how many I know not, in America. The chapel in Barnsbury will seat, I imagine, from three to four hundred people, and it is always nearly full, and attended by

people in respectable appearance. Of the really poor they seem to have none at all.

The Sandemanians originated in Scotland, in 1728, as a kind of reaction against Presbyterianism and Calvinism. Mr. John Glass, a minister of the Kirk, was deposed by the Presbyterian Church Courts because he taught that the Church could be subject to no league or covenant—that faith was simple belief—and that Christianity never was, nor ever could be the established religion of any nation without becoming the reverse of what it was when first instituted. Mr. Robert Sandeman, one of his elders, however, by his numerous writings, left on the new organization the impress of his name. In these days, when metaphysical speculation has little encouragement amongst Christians, the Sandemanians tell us they have no formal creed or confession of faith—that they simply follow Scripture practice, and that is all. For this purpose they meet together on the first day of the week, not only to read and hear the Word, but particularly to break bread or communicate together in the Lord’s Supper; to pray, which is done by several in turns; to listen to an exhortation from one of the elders. They are a Christian republic. At the conclusion of every prayer—

whether pronounced by the elders or the brethren—the whole church say Amen, according to what is intimated in 1 Cor. xiv. 16. In the interval between the morning and the afternoon service they have their love-feast, of which every member partakes, when they salute each other with a holy kiss. The children are all baptized, on the plea that if one of the parents believes the children are not unclean but holy, and because it is written in Acts, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” They deem it unlawful to eat flesh with its blood; they wash each other’s feet; they hold all things in common so far as the claims of the poor and the Church are concerned; they forbid no amusements but those connected with the lot, such as cards or dice; their elders are chosen from amongst them on account of their piety and character, and are ordained by prayer and fasting, and laying on of hands. A deacon is elected in the same way, minus the fasting. Any one who appears to understand and believe the truth may be admitted into their fellowship. When a person is excommunicated the act takes place in the presence of the whole church. Two elders must be present at every act of discipline. It may be further stated that in every church

transaction, whether it be receiving, censuring, or expelling members, or choosing officers, or in performing any other business, unanimity is deemed indispensable. If there is a dissenting brother, after the reasons of the dissent have been stated, and judged unscriptural by the church, he is expelled. The Sandemanians allow neither government by a majority nor a representation of minorities.