I hardly know whether it is worthwhile to answer what is merely teaching ignorance; besides, the book is not published. What shall I say to arguments which teach the perilous days of the last times (where I am to turn away from hypocritical profession) to be the great tribulation, which if God did not shorten, no flesh would be saved; which confounds the great tribulation of all nations (Rev. 7) with the tribulation marked by the setting up the abomination of desolation on which those in Judea are warned to flee to the mountains; which takes Luke 21:25, 2625And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; 26Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. (Luke 21:25‑26) for the church's tribulation where they see the Son of man coming, when it is positively revealed that when Christ appears we shall appear with Him; which admits the difference of the church here, but supposes that after death they will be brought into the same condition; which quotes passages referring to being sons to prove that they are the same body, with which it has nothing to do? The whole object is to set aside the church, and from the universal cause, ignorance of their own place in it-making union by faith, with which it has nothing to do; not seeing that there was no Head to be united to in the Old Testament; confounds the acting of the Holy Ghost with His coming; takes up the Hebrews to show what the church is, which never speaks of the church (save in chap. 12 prophetically, and there distinctively from Old Testament saints) but of saints on earth in trial, and Christ, a separate person, in heaven. Was ever a greater olla podrida than page 15, quoting Heb. 12:2222But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, (Hebrews 12:22) to prove the Old Testament saints are the church, when verse 23 makes them a distinct set? Page 27 proves he has no idea at all of the body, quoting passages which say we are sons and heirs, Abraham's seed, which is individual, as if it touched the question of one body.
In page 30 you have the formal denial of the whole doctrine of the church of God as taught by Paul, to set up independent churches, free to act in separate responsibility. This is the object of the book, to deny the church. It is the flat denial of 1 Cor. 12 and other passages. The whole book indeed is Mr. N.'s system, and it is perhaps well that the connection of loose brethren with it should come clearly out. The book has one only object and unbelieving source, as his had-the denial of the church of God, the very truth God is specifically bringing out, with the present expectation of the Lord; a truth which is identical with the presence of the Holy Ghost here, as distinguished from His operation—as the Son was here in Christ on earth distinct from His divine working at all times. Of course if I swamp the present distinctive truth of God, I put the New Testament saints on a footing with the Old, because my own faith does not go beyond it. But ignorance is a different thing from denial. Mr. N.'s and Mr. W.'s are the denial as to this of what God is specially bringing to light. Page 30 is the formal denial of God's truth. The church was an organized visible society on earth: to deny it is to deny the plain word of God: that sin has disorganized it, alas! I do not question. There are a mass of suppositions put out as truth, of which I take no notice. It is a tentative to bring up again the denial of God's truth, which I am sure the Lord will frustrate. Deniers of the truth may be glad of it, to their loss.
Sincerely yours in the Lord.
Ventnor,
August 4th, 1873.