Being ignorant of the circumstances which have passed, you cannot of course tell to what tests charity may have been put. Still, love is of God, and God is love; hence I trust that it will surmount, in virtue of its divine nature, and through divine power, everything; and indeed so, thank God, I have found it. Still, the love of God, though rising over and covering everything because of its own fullness, and that it owns Christ in the saints, and our own nothingness, is not, dear brother, a blind and unintelligent feeling. I do earnestly desire the church's, rather the saint's humiliation for the divisions and state it is in generally. And I earnestly desire the Lord may be with the beloved ones at -. In uniting in a matter of the kind, what I feel we have to do is to see the mind of the Holy Ghost, and how far Christ is leading in it. I earnestly desire the common fellowship of the saints in humiliation. Still, as to this particular case, I apprehend I am not wrong in connecting it with the circumstances of the present time, and a certain spiritual judgment of the state of things here (or what may be connected with it).
Now to look really and unfeignedly for a common supplication, if unity in judgment of the remedy be not demanded, at least, the sense of the evil which we have to present to God must be the same, or we shall not be presenting the same spiritual groan to God at all. The common act would be hypocrisy, though each might be unfeignedly sincere for himself. Now I may tell you, dear brother, that it was the judgment of several spiritual and intelligent saints (not of us of Plymouth) that the ground you took would aid greatly, or at any rate would aid, in increasing the spiritual delusion and blindness under which many beloved saints were laboring here. Such, I do not doubt, was the fact, though individual grace will always be overruled for blessing; and hence I fully trusted the Lord about it, assured that He would overrule it for blessing. This will probably little affect the certainty you have that you are right, but this will hardly govern other people. It is a question merely whose spiritual judgment is the soundest: both may be partial, and both used by supreme divine wisdom for the bringing about His own purposes; though, while God uses both, they cannot actually go together. Hence, while I am sure all the love which shall be in exercise in your meeting will be most surely blest to those who are there (and I trust to others), and indeed all there is of right spiritual judgment, and my heart would go unfeignedly along with it; still, it could not formally, while ignorant of the mind in which it was done, join in what it did not even know—could not, in the sense of possibility.
If there were the recognition of certain things, and state of things—of this of course I cannot speak—then I could not in good conscience before the Lord have anything at all to say to it. It would be both hypocrisy and a positive disobedience and departure from God. My judgment is definite and assured, I believe; and I have no doubt that I have it from the Lord. I dare not, nor would I, of course, depart from it. Any charge of want of charity to which I may render myself liable, would not turn me away, because there is a day coming when every one will receive praise of God. I am content to wait for that, though indeed I have not had to wait for it, through abounding and undeserved grace which thinks of our weakness.
As to our course, dear brother, I have no doubt at all (though admitting many imperfections in the way) that it has been of God. We (that is, those who have come out and met faithfully in our weakness) have found so distinct and unequivocal a testimony to His favor and approbation, and such an evident and sensible blessing, that we have been confirmed in the strongest possible way in that which we have done in faithfulness to God. We are content with His portion, whatever men may judge of us. For my own part, now twenty years that I have been converted, I never experienced so distinct a deliverance of God, nor so sensible a consciousness of the blessing and joy of spirit by the Holy Ghost which accompanies walking in His will. I had no thought or idea of the difference, the total difference resulting from the step in which I have obeyed by faith. I do not think I could express too strongly the transition. I have no doubt at all that there is a delusion of the enemy over their minds.
In many other ways, and in the working in individual souls, the hand of God has been most marked. Your fast meeting would, I apprehend, identify me more or less with that which I have left, as acknowledging it more or less. This in the very smallest degree I would not do for all the world, and I am conscious that I am led of God in this. You cannot be surprised therefore that I am decided.
Ever, dear brother,
Yours in unfeigned affection.
For example, if I believe we are suffering for failure, and, as is stated by many here, others believe they are suffering as martyrs for the truth, how could there be common humiliation?]
Plymouth [1845].