Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/192



Meanwhile his attitude is not admirable. “I have but little,” he says, “to add to my former letter, except to state still more explicitly that I am apart from Tottenham, on the ground of your having been received to fellowship there as one entirely identified with the present condition of things at Bethesda. … Therefore, when I meet you, it will be on this solemn ground, and not on a matter of individual concern. … You must excuse my adding more, as I have reason to distrust this whole proceeding.”

Groves replied with some pardonable heat.

“You conclude your note … by saying, ‘you must excuse my adding more, as I have reason to distrust this whole proceeding’. If you have, why do you not come forward like a Christian man, and prove its character? I believe, so far as you are connected with it, and your friends, you well may distrust it; and when it is all before the Church of God, as it all shall be, I believe they will mistrust it yet more. … I again ask you what part of my conduct you complain of. Again, I want to know from you where and when I have taught the false doctrines imputed to me. … I again want to know what your ‘other grounds’ include. By this multum in parvo phrase … what do you mean? What I want is, to meet you and the originators of these slanders and false accusations against me, face to face, for it is time this wholesale dealing in calumny and slander, to ruin the Christian reputations of those who are opposed to you, should be put an end to; and that no shuffling about meeting those who have been thus wronged should be admitted, under the cover of a few sanctimonious phrases, which seem to imply that no one cares for the honour of the Lord of Glory and His church but you and your friends. … If … righteousness has so fallen in the streets that you cannot attain unto the standard of Christian morals, of first communicating a brother’s faults privately to himself, before you expose him publicly, at least seek not to. sink below heathen morals, by, when you have cast a dishonour on his name, refusing to meet him, either to establish what you have said, or allow him to clear himself.