Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/186

 plain that a mere question of fact (revelation apart) should not be made de fide.

Nor is this all. Such of Newton’s friends as had been admitted after examination now withdrew. About the end of January, 1849, Captain Woodfall went to Newton’s old congregation, now removed from Ebrington Street to Compton Street, and took the communion there. Now, the statement of that church’s views, issued in January, 1848, had been accepted in the Letter of the Ten as “disclaiming the errors charged against the tracts”. The elders of Bethesda, nevertheless, condemned Woodfall’s act, and a church meeting was called for Monday, February 12. At this meeting “Captain Woodfall read out a resignation on behalf of himself and his brother,” using in the course of it the following expression: “We consider the regulations that have been, and will be virtually acted out, do effectually hinder the Christians at Compton Street from even applying for fellowship at Bethesda”. Lord Congleton explains that, apart from this resignation, Woodfall would not have been excommunicated, as he was not known to hold Newton’s errors; but, had he “repeated the act, he would have been publicly reprimanded; and if he had done it a third time he would have been put out of communion”.

One could hope Lord Congleton was mistaken, but he speaks quite positively, and he had every means of knowing. Assuming for the moment that persons actually holding Newton’s views ought to have been excommunicated, as both sides agreed throughout, the earlier principle of the church at Bethesda was the only one reconcilable either with equity or with the principles on which Brethrenism had been inaugurated. This principle had been to receive the “personally sound”. Two considerations called for this individualising treatment. In