Page:Groves - Darbyism - Its Rise and Development and a Review of the Bethesda Question.djvu/37

 raise, however, one solemn protest against the principle involved, that brethren are justified in making an act done or left undone eighteen years ago, a ground for maintaining a separation now, as if God holds saints responsible for all acts performed by a church in time past. If this is to be the basis of communion, where can it exist; and better far go back to creeds and confessions and receive all who subscribe to them, than maintain a system that will oblige all to assent to all done by others as its ground. In the dread of consequences, under a present danger, many may be almost excused for extreme measures, their fears magnify the danger; but when well nigh twenty years have past, and the danger of complicity with errors then current in Plymouth has passed away, can these brethren justify a present separation on the ground of a document that, with the occasion, passed away also—a record of the past, necessarily now null and void, because it contained no rule for future guidance, and expressed no obligation on the conscience of any, either to approve the past, or to enforce concurrence in any similar line of action for the future. The letter may have been right, may have been wrong; in neither case can scriptural warrant be found for separation, while those acting on it were acting in all good conscience; but even could any ground be found to justify the separation of Mr. Alexander and his friends at the time, under the magnified apprehensions of the probable inroads of false doctrine, what shall be found as an excuse to warrant the maintenance of such a course now; and we would entreat all those implicated in these divisions, and whose hearts may yet mourn for the separations and discord everywhere, for the Lord’s sake, that now, after so many years of sorrow, the question at issue be again weighed, in its present bearing, and judged of, not by the embittered memories of the past, but in the light of the facts and circumstances of the present.

We now give “The Letter of the Ten” in full, adding a few remarks as we proceed. The letter was addressed to those who were in fellowship, and was read out at a church meeting in Bethesda, June 29th, 1848.

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“Our brother, Mr. George Alexander, having printed and circulated a statement expressive of his reasons for withdrawing from visible fellowship with us at the table of the Lord; and these reasons being grounded on the fact that those who labour among you have not complied with his request relative to the judging of certain errors which have been taught at Plymouth; it becomes needful that those of us who have incurred any responsibility in this matter should lay before you a brief explanation of the way in which we have acted.

“And first, it may be well to mention that we had no intimation whatever of