Chapter Twelve, Storms in Stuttgart
Chapter Twelve, Storms in Stuttgart
A not infrequent visitor to the Mullers’ house in Paul Street was Robert Chapman of Barnstaple. A visit he had made in March 1842 had had a more than social purpose; he had just returned from a trip to the continent and had grown concerned about the state of many German Christians. He had put it to Muller that he should publish his Narratives of the Lord’s dealings ... in German so that the faith of his fellow countrymen might be strengthened and that they might see the importance of recognising in practice the authority of Scripture. He had suggested, too, that Muller should think very seriously about making a longish working visit to his homeland.
In all the German States, Christians were, with very few exceptions, connected with established State Churches. Indeed, the only exceptions known to Muller were the ‘close Baptists’ who, he said, ‘by their most exclusive separate views, only confirmed believers in remaining in the Establishment’. Chapman had reported to his friend what he had found to be the typical German reaction to his explanation of the position on church order and practice which he, Muller and the early Brethren had decided was Scriptural. ‘It is Scriptural, you are right,’ they said, ‘but if we were to practise this, what would be the consequences? What would become of us and our wives and children?’
Chapman had pointed out to Muller how ideally suited he would be to share with these brethren and sisters the experience and insight gained at Teignmouth and Bristol. ‘I cannot go till the Lord calls me,’ Muller had said. And that was how the matter had rested for about fourteen months.
However, in May 1843 Muller was again faced with the question of whether to go or not to go. He received two letters from Germany: the first was from a German woman, ‘Frau G’ who had spent some time in Bristol in 1841 and 1842; she had become a Christian as a result of a series of conversations with Muller and of translating his Narratives into German. She reported that on returning to Germany she had searched in vain for a company of believers who met along the lines that she had learned from Muller and seen practised in Bristol. At last she had found a little Baptist church in Stuttgart, which was separated from the State Church, and where she had subsequently been baptised and received into fellowship. She soon noticed a number of differences in church order to those which she had seen practised at Bethesda and in particular became somewhat alarmed at their close Baptist principles such as their refusal to have fellowship with unbaptised believers. These principles were rigorously upheld by non-conformist Christians in the Stuttgart area; in addition they refused to baptise anyone unless they promised never to take the Lord’s supper with unbaptised believers or with those who belonged to a State Church. She knew that the practice at Bethesda was, in general, to receive all who were true believers in the Lord Jesus irrespective of more minor disagreements. She had therefore written to Muller asking his advice on the matter. Her letter was accompanied by another letter from a ‘Dr R’, a leading Wirtem-berg barrister who attended the Baptist church into which Frau G had been received. Dr R. clearly held the close communion views, but having read and been impressed with Frau G’s manuscript translation of Muller’s Narrative wished to have the scriptural basis of Muller’s open communion views explained to him.
Muller wondered whether this was the opportunity for which he had been waiting since his conversation with Robert Chapman. If he was to work for a while in Germany it could not be within an established church for he would not have been permitted to do so even if his conscience had allowed it; but here for the first time was a contact with German believers out of the Establishment. ‘At Stuttgart, I judged, I might labour in expounding the truth in this close Baptist Church, and seek to bring these dear brethren out of their sectarian views.’
Muller began to pray and ponder the difficulties.
I saw a hard struggle before me with reference to the brethren who were to be won for the truth, and to be brought out of their errors; in the Continental manners and the long and beautiful journey on the Rhine I saw, through grace, no charm, and certainly I saw nothing in them which would induce me to leave home, but the reverse [after fourteen years in England, Muller now referred to Bristol as ‘home’]; the fourth Orphan-House was on the point of being opened, and I, naturally, was very reluctant to be absent from it just then; the labour would be great in Germany, and work would heap up greatly for me in Bristol, during my absence.
After much prayer and self-examination, Muller became convinced that it was God’s will for him to go. This conviction came despite the enormous difficulties which lay in the way. First, a mass of work needed to be done before the fourth home could be opened: Muller asked the Lord to help him to get it done before he left. Secondly, Muller wanted to be in a position to leave behind him several hundred pounds so that the orphan and school work could continue for at least about two months without any undue burden being placed upon the staff in his absence. Humanly speaking, there was no prospect at all of Muller receiving such a sum: it would have to be got by prayer. Thirdly, Mr and Mrs Muller would need a considerable sum of money to get them to Germany and to keep them during a longish stay. Fourthly, Muller wanted to publish his Narrative in German. Frau G’s translation had gone no further than the manuscript stage and was unsuitable for publication. Although the cost of printing and paper was very much less at that time in Germany than in England, Muller reckoned he would need between one and two hundred pounds to publish privately about four thousand copies of the work. A fifth difficulty in the way was to find a suitable matron for the fourth home.
From the beginning of June, George, Mary and Mary’s sister who now lived with them prayed every morning that God would remove the five difficulties if it were really His will that Muller should work for a while in Germany. Muller admitted later, I had a secret satisfaction in the greatness of the difficulties which were in the way. So far from being cast down on account of them, they delighted my soul; for I only desired to do the will of the Lord in this matter… the greater the obstacles, the more abundantly plain the proof, that I had come to a right judgment, if they were removed by prayer ... I did nothing but pray. Prayer and faith, the universal remedies against every want and every difficulty; and the nourishment of prayer and faith, God’s holy word, helped me over all the difficulties.
But for a while the difficulties seemed to increase. Funds began to arrive if anything even more slowly, and instead of finding a matron for the new home, another lady member of staff seemed on the point of leaving. On July 12th Muller said to one of his helpers: ‘Well, my soul is at peace. The Lord’s time is not yet come, but, when it is come, He will blow away all these obstacles, as chaff is blown away before the wind.’
A quarter of an hour later, Muller was handed a note. In it, the writer explained that he intended giving Muller just over seven hundred pounds to be used for four purposes but divided as Muller thought best: amongst poor Christians; to German Christians or for publishing the Narrative; amongst the children; and to complete the expenses of the new Grosvenor Street chapel which Robert Chapman was planning to build in Barnstaple.
‘When I received this note, I was not in the least excited, but took the circumstances as quietly as if it were a matter which could not be otherwise.’ Three of the difficulties were thus immediately removed. The means for a German publication of the Narrative, and for the Mullers to stay in Stuttgart would now be easily met. And Muller would be able to leave behind him in Bristol more than enough to finance the work for several months. Over eighty pounds which was needed at Barnstaple was duly sent off, and over one hundred pounds was allocated to help poor local Christians.
Shortly afterwards a suitable sister was found to fill the role of matron at the new home, and Muller was able, also, to fit out the house—No. 4 Wilson Street—ready to receive the first children. And the other member of staff who had considered leaving decided to stay; thus all the difficulties were removed.
On August the 9th 1843 Muller and Mary left Bristol with a German woman, ‘Fraulein W’, who was returning to Germany after making a special trip to England to be baptised by Muller. (She had earlier been refused baptism by the Baptist church at Stuttgart, because she felt herself unable to promise never to have communion with unbaptised believers or members of the State Church.) Five days later, on a beautiful summer’s day, the travellers left Rotterdam aboard a Rhine steamer. On the river banks Muller noticed how clean the attractive Dutch cottages were; but here was an opportunity not to be missed. He began to give German tracts to those who could read German; many of those on deck were Dutch however: they would understand when he spoke to them but could not read his tracts.
He then got into a long conversation with four Jews who disagreed among themselves as to their own religion but were unanimous in their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. One elderly man, having been given a tract which he read, approached Muller with tears in his eyes asking him to sell him another tract.
‘But I will gladly give you some more tracts,’ said Muller.
‘Oh!’ said the old man, ‘if you could but stay, how glad the old clergyman, a pious man, would be to see you.’
But Muller could not afford the time to stop in Holland; a little later, while explaining to another interested passenger the purpose of his mission to Germany, the reply was:
‘Brother, the Lord bless thee.’ This turned out to be a Baptist minister from Amsterdam on his way to Utrecht. Perhaps Amsterdam Baptists were more liberal than those in Stuttgart.
Muller decided to hire a two berth cabin aboard the steamer for Mary and himself to spend the nights, finding it was cheaper than going ashore. It was a decision he regretted. The noise of activities aboard kept them awake until midnight and woke them again soon after three: this happened for three nights and they had very little sleep. On the third day they arrived at Coblentz where George and Mary took a stroll and managed to give tracts to a Prussian soldier for himself and his comrades and to an English woman with a Roman Catholic servant whom they heard speaking in familiar language.
On the fourth day Muller saw scenery as beautiful as any he had ever seen: ruined castles and fortresses amidst the vineyards on either bank for a hundred miles or more, a reminder of the faded glory of German knights and emperors. ‘It is beautiful,’ Muller thought, ‘but how poor, how very poor this beauty in comparison with Jesus!’
That evening they arrived at Mayence, a large and busy fortress town, where printing had been invented. On the opposite bank they could see an early railway line; there seemed little trace of the poverty which was so obvious in large English towns of the period. Muller noted that almost the entire population was Catholic.
Next day, on deck, Muller saw a young French woman reading Paul’s Epistle to the Romans; during a long conversation he soon discovered that she was a keen Christian and presented her with a copy of his Narrative, some tracts and an Orphan Report to help her with her English.
At four on August 19th they arrived at Weinheim, where they stayed with friends in an old building, formerly a cloister; Muller was asked to expound the scriptures that evening and the following morning at family prayer.
Three days later they arrived at Stuttgart and were warmly welcomed at her home by Frau G who was obviously determined to make their stay comfortable.
The Baptist Church, to which he had been invited, had about fifty members. Muller, never a man prone to accept an unsatisfactory situation as he found it, fought and won his first minor battle at Stuttgart over the times of the church’s meetings—which, he said, if they ‘had been on purpose ill chosen, could scarcely have been worse’. On Sunday mornings they were at nine so that mothers of families found it difficult to attend: Muller had them put back half an hour. On Sunday afternoons they were at two when the heat of the summer sun and the after effects of Sunday lunch ‘combined together to make the persons sleepy, so that individuals not more than half a yard from me, though interested about what was going on, were sometimes fast asleep’. Evening meetings—on Sundays and during the week—began at half-past eight when people were not only exhausted at the end of a busy day but also generally drowsy after enjoying a heavy supper. Muller persuaded the saints to give up the two o’clock meeting on a Sunday on the grounds that two meetings were quite enough for one day and that parents would thus be given more time to be with their children, or to read their Bibles. During the week Muller had the evening meetings brought forward to eight and ‘affectionately advised the dear saints to take a very light supper on those evenings when we met, that blessing might not be hindered.’ For about a week things went quietly for Muller, but he suspected that this was merely the lull before the storm, and that shortly a more major battle would commence. He was right. On Wednesday August 30th he was requested to meet the elders of the church. The leading brother began to address Muller.
‘The time is approaching,’ he said, ‘when the church will take the Lord’s Supper. [They did this once a month.] We have a rule, which we consider to be scriptural, that we neither take the Lord’s supper with any one who has not himself been baptised by immersion after he has believed, nor with anyone who, (though baptised himself) would take the Lord’s supper with anyone who has not thus been baptised. Neither will we take the Lord’s supper with any brother who would take it with any still remaining in the State church.’
Muller therefore failed to qualify for reception at the Lord’s table on the last two counts. While he had of course been baptised as a believer, he would gladly break bread with any true believer in Christ; for about an hour he was listened to quietly while he stated his convictions and gave his reasons from scripture. The meeting then closed and it was agreed to meet again the following day.
At this second meeting a number of other brethren besides the elders were present. The leading brother expounded his view that no one was born again nor had a right to say his sins were forgiven unless he was baptised, and that the apostles were not born again until the day of Pentecost. He then announced that Christ himself had been bom again at His baptism, and that during the last three years of His life He had not been under the Law, but had ceased to be under the Law when he was baptised. Muller felt that foundation truths of the gospel were now being attacked, and at the conclusion of this remarkable exposition suggested a further meeting the following day. This being agreed upon, Muller at the third meeting pressed the brother to defend his views. The said brother fairly soon conceded that he had made an unscriptural statement, and that our Lord had no need to be born again. Muller then argued from a number of passages—including Galatians 3:13, Philippians 2:8 and Hebrews 10:1-13—that our Lord was under the Law up to the end of His life on earth; on this point too, the elder eventually acknowledged his error. He was however unwilling to renounce his belief that baptism was a covenant with God, and that there can be no forgiveness of sins without adult baptism; he told Muller that he was sinning in breaking bread with unbaptised believers and with members of the State Church, and maintained that if the Church allowed him to break bread with them, they would be defiled with him. Another elder agreed with this, but two elders and a number of other brethren present declared themselves quite ready to take communion with Muller, and with anyone who loved the Lord Jesus.
At this point the leading brother announced that there must be a separation. Muller begged the group not to think in those terms.
‘Consider,’ he said, ‘what a scandal it would be to the ungodly, and what a stumbling block also to believers yet in the State Church. I have not come to Stuttgart to make a separation, but only to lend a helping hand according to the ability which the Lord may give me. Brethren, as we have now spent more than six hours together in intercourse, let us meet together to-morrow evening for some hours of prayer.’
This suggestion having been agreed they met on the Saturday evening to pray that God would unite them together in truth and show on which side the truth was. Towards the end of the meeting the leading brother rose to his feet and related—in what he called prayer —his experience before his conversion, his conversion, his being convinced about baptism, Muller’s coming to Stuttgart, his readiness to receive the unbaptised as a result of Muller’s discussions with him, but that on reversion to his former view only to receive the baptised, his peace had been restored to him, and that he intended to live and die in that belief. At the conclusion of the meeting Muller could not resist telling him that the Lord had decided the matter, and shown on whose side the truth was: for if he had really been in peace, he could not have regarded a narrative of his experiences as prayer! According to Muller, the prayer had the effect of convincing those present that the elder ‘had not the truth’. Muller repeated that he dreaded a separation and that he and Mary would gladly break bread privately to avoid any unpleasantness; he suggested that all should continue to pray for unity and declared himself ready to meet anyone at any time for further discussion of the matter.
Next day was Sunday and Muller (having been asked to preach at all meetings of the church) spoke in the morning from Exodus 12— the institution of the Passover feast. This led on to his delivering a discourse on what is meant by feeding upon Jesus, that believers unite round Him at the Lord’s table and that all believers are entitled to all the privileges of saints. Muller later claimed that he had not deliberately chosen these points but that they had emerged naturally from his talk which was the fourth in a series on Exodus 12. However, after he had finished speaking, he intended to close in prayer but before he could do so he was interrupted by the irrepressible and now irate leading elder:
‘I must contradict you, Muller! First, you have said that the bread and wine means the body and blood of our Lord, whereas in truth it is the real body and blood of our Lord. Secondly, I believe that as circumcision makes a man an Israelite, and thus fits him to partake of the Paschal Lamb, so without baptism no one is fitted to partake of the Lord’s Supper, which is set forth by the Paschal Lamb’.
(Muller had said that every believer in Jesus was by his faith made a spiritual Israelite, and thus had a right to the Lord’s Supper.) The elder was now growing more angry:
‘It is against the rules of our church that Muller takes the Lord’s Supper with unbaptised believers, and with those who have not left the State Church. Muller thus partakes of their sins, is defiled by them and therefore cannot be admitted to the Lord’s Supper’.
His voice rising to a crescendo, he now turned towards Muller and delivered the final blow:
‘I am the ruler of this church and you are no longer permitted to speak at our meetings. Whosoever takes the Lord’s Supper with Muller will no longer be considered as a member of the church.’
With this he walked out of the meeting.
Muller, who commendably had said nothing during this declamation, now fell to his knees and (perhaps this was unnecessarily ostentatious) prayed aloud that God would bless the word that he had spoken, forgive Brother…, and teach him (Muller) what he should do now. He then attempted to dismiss the meeting, at which ‘Brother R’ who according to Muller ‘had been sighing under the iron hand of Brother----for a long time’ asked Muller to continue the meeting as before. Brother R was, however, immediately interrupted by another elder and told that he had no right to make this invitation. Muller then repeated that he had only come from England in love, haying no wish to force himself upon them, and left the meeting.
Muller had tried desperately to avoid a separation but it had happened. He decided not to go to the afternoon meeting but two sympathetic elders who were present reported to him that the leading brother had attempted to disprove what Muller had said.
That evening seventeen people, including twelve from the Baptist church, met in his room for the breaking of bread ; and for the next few weeks a small company met with Muller—some from the Baptist church and some from elsewhere—according to the principles which he held dear and believed to be scriptural.
Muller’s attitude to this little Baptist church in Stuttgart well illustrates the balance and maturity of his judgment (though still in his thirties) as well as his rare ability to combine a penetrating insight into the causes of unsound teaching with tolerance and love. He had no doubts that they had been right in considering believers’ baptism to be scriptural, and in separating from the state church in Wirtemberg. But he believed that they had made the mistake of placing too much emphasis on these two points. ‘Baptism and separation from the state church,’ he wrote, ‘had at last become almost everything to these dear brethren. “We are the church. Truth is only to be found among us. All others are in error, and in Babylon.” These were the phrases used again and again by our brother… .’ Muller believed that whenever people made too much of certain aspects of truth ‘though they were even the most precious truths connected with our being risen in Christ, or our heavenly calling, or prophecy’, then they would be ‘losers in their own souls’.
For more than two months Muller met with the small company which had left the Stuttgart Baptists and expounded the scriptures to them, particularly those parts bearing on the false teaching which they had, in his view, been taught, for example that the forgiveness of sin is received through baptism, that baptism is a covenant between us and God, that there is no regeneration without baptism and that through baptism our old natures actually die. But at the end of this period, during which Muller had clearly let it be known that he was the only speaker at their meetings, he announced that when they next met for the breaking of bread he would take his place among them ‘simply as a brother’. Things did not, however, go quite as Muller had wished even then, and some delightful incidents occurred. A brother would read a portion from the Bible and then say, ‘Perhaps our brother Muller will expound to us this portion’; or another brother would speak briefly on a subject and then say, ‘Perhaps our brother Muller will enter somewhat more fully into this subject’. And brother Muller would oblige; but later he would privately and lovingly point out that all these matters ought to be left to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Miiller spent over six months in Stuttgart. By the end of that time a group of twenty-five were meeting together including a third elder from the Baptist church who had at first thought of Muller as very much in error. The day before Muller and his wife left, he recorded that ‘not only the brethren and sisters among whom I had laboured took leave of me with many tears, but also nineteen brethren and sisters of the close Baptist church came to my lodgings, and affectionately bade me farewell, and with many tears’.