Page:Groves - Darbyism - Its Rise and Development and a Review of the Bethesda Question.djvu/48



“Mr. Alexander himself was the principal party in declining the presence of the brother referred to, on that occasion, such enquiry being no longer demanded, inasmuch as the difficulties relative to the views of the individual in question had been removed by private intercourse. We leave Mr. Alexander to reconcile this fact, which he cannot have forgotten, with the assertion contained under his second ecial reason for withdrawing.

“In regard to the third ground alleged by Mr. Alexander, viz: that by not judging the matter, we lie under the suspicion of supporting false doctrine, we have only to refer to the statement already made at the commencement of this paper.”

These paragraphs seem so fully to answer Mr. Alexander’s reasons for withdrawing from Bethesda, that we need add nothing further than to remind all saints that they cannot separate from their fellow saints, either by refusing to go to them, or by refusing to receive them, without setting aside the basis of communion given us in the Word, the power of which is the Name of Jesus, and the title to which is His precious blood which makes the foulest clean, our only title whether in heaven or on earth, and what God has cleansed, it is not for us to call common or unclean.

“In conclusion, we would seek to impress upon all present, the evil of treating the subject of our Lord’s humanity as a matter of speculative or angry controversy. One of those who have been ministering among you from the beginning, feels it a matter of deep thankfulness to God, that so long ago as in the year 1835, he committed to writing, and subsequently printed, what he had learned from the Scriptures of truth relative to the meaning of that inspired declaration, ‘The Word was made flesh.’ He would affectionately refer any whose minds may be now disquieted, to what he then wrote, and was afterwards led to publish. If there be heresy in the simple statements contained in the letters alluded to, let it be pointed out; if not, let all who are interested in the matter know, that we continue unto the present day ‘speaking the same things.’”

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Happy would it have been for all, had the caution given in the opening sentence of the last paragraph been borne in mind; and henceforth may all remember the Lord’s word to Moses, when in the presence of the burning bush, he turned aside to gaze, “Put thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”