1.——Visited, for a short time, the brethren at Plymouth, where I found less comfort than elsewhere, feeling that their original bond of union, in the truth as it is in Jesus, had been changed for a united testimony against all who differed from them."-P. 342.
2.——The moment the witnessing for the common life as our bond gives place to a witnessing against errors by separation of persons and preaching, (errors allowably compatible with the common life,) every individual, or society of individuals, first comes before the mind as those who might need witnessing against, and all their conduct and principles have first to be examined and approved before they can be received; and the position which this occupying the seat of judgment will place you in will be this: the narrow-minded and bigoted will rule because his conscience cannot and will not give way, and therefore the more enlarged heart must yield. It is into this position, dear D——, I feel some little flocks are fast tending, if they have not already attained it. Making light not life time measure of communion."-Letter to J. N. D., March 10TH, 1836.
3.——As to our liberty in Christ to worship with any congregation under heaven where He manifests himself to bless and to save, can there be in any Christian mind a doubt? If my Lord shall say to me, in any congregation of the almost unnumbered sections of the Church, ‘What dost thou here?' I would reply, ‘Seeing Thou wast here to save and sanctify, I felt it safe to be with Thee.' If He again said, as perhaps He may amongst most of us, ‘Didst thou not see abominations here, an admixture of that which was unscriptural, and the absence of that which was scriptural, and in some points error, at least in thy judgment?' my answer would be, ‘Yea, Lord, but I dared not call that place unholy where Thou wast present to bless, nor by refusing communion in worship reject those as unholy whom Thou hadst by Thy saving power evidently sanctified and set apart for Thine own.' Our reason for rejecting the congregations of apostate bodies is, that Christ does not manifest Himself among them in their public character, though He may save some individuals as brands plucked from the burning. To these churches we cry, standing on the outside, ‘Come out of her, my people; come out of her.' Among the others we stand, as the Son of man, or rather with Him, in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. 1:1313And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. (Revelation 1:13)), telling them to remember their first love, first purity, and first work in all holy doctrine and discipline, lest the Lord take away their candlestick; but we would rather linger, in hope the impending judgment may be stayed, or some yet repent, than say, like Edom, in the day of Judah's sorrows, ‘Down with her, down with her, even to the ground.' (See also Obad. 1:10, 1410For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. (Obadiah 10)
14Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress. (Obadiah 14))
“To the question, Are we not countenancing error by this plan? our answer is, that if we must appear to countenance error or discountenance brotherly love, and the visible union of the Church of God, we prefer the former, hoping that our lives and our tongues may be allowed by the Lord so intelligently to speak that at last our righteousness shall be allowed to appear; but if not, still we may feel we have chosen the better part, since we tarried only for our Lord's departure; and as the candlestick retired, and its light vanished, we pronounce our sad farewell; but so long as Christ dwells in an individual, or walks in the midst of a congregation, blessing the ministrations to the conversion and edification of souls, we dare not denounce and formally withdraw from either, for fear of the awful six of schism, of sin against Christ and His mystical body."-Letter to J. N. D. p. 528.
4.-” Whenever it is the Lord's pleasure that I should return, I do most fervently pray that my soul may be filled with Himself, and not with those angry questions: what seems really wanted is that true humiliation of soul before God, which makes the beam in our own eyes visible, and the mote in the eye of another comparatively disregarded. ‘Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?' often recurs to me, when I read those exaggerated statements; and I often fear that if such a state of things continue, some signal mark of God's displeasure will rest upon it all. For myself I would join no Church permanently that had not some constituted rule. I have seen enough of that plan, of every one doing what is right in his own eyes, and then calling it the Spirit's order, to feel assured it is a delusion; and I consider it far more dishonoring to God, than where no pretension is made, beyond that of governing according to the best of the spiritual wisdom given us, guided by the word and Spirit of God, which is always promised to us for asking."-P. 413.
Are not many of the “open brethren” as “exclusive” ecclesiastically towards other Christian bodies, as the “exclusives” are towards them? And what a repulsive spectacle to outsiders is this twofold exclusiveness I prompting the question:-
“Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?”