To those who complain that the letter was obscure in its meaning, it ought to be borne in mind, as stated above, that it was given to the church and accepted with such explanation: as were then afforded, and that therefore, those who signed or accepted it are not responsible for what has resulted from the use that has been made of it.
Shortly after the reading of the Letter of the Ten to the church, Mr. Darby came again to Bristol, and had an interview with both Mr. Müller and Mr. Craik, in which he again urged the taking up of the tracts by Bethesda, and passing a church condemnation on them. The reasons already given were repeated, and finding their judgments were not to be changed, he sought to intimidate by the threat of separating from them all those believers in other places, with whom for years they had held christian fellowship. Those who have learnt to have to do with God alone, are not easily to be moved by either the persuasions or the threats of man. They stand on a Rock and allow the waves to beat around. Having failed to induce these brethren to carry out his wishes, he started off on his unholy errand, and surely “destruction and misery have been in his ways.” At one place as in Stafford he led those meeting there into his views, at another as in Kendal, he failed. From one place to another he went, sowing discord and strife, seeking to enforce everywhere the adoption of his course towards Bethesda, which has, in its consequences, and in the miseries it has caused, cast into the shade all that had taken place in Plymouth. Assemblies of saints, one after another, were placed under the bann of excommunication, for no other sin than not being able to see that Mr. Darby was right, and Bethesda wrong. The eyes of many ran down with tears, and the hearts of many were broken, at this proud, high-handed dealing with the consciences of others, and this trampling in the dust the rights of every conscience but its own.
There are few matters of controversy where there is not a call for some forbearance and gentleness, but as if in the present case, the maximum of virtue and love was, to believe nothing, to hope nothing, and to bear nothing, we find Mr. Darby, on reaching Leeds, writing, and with one stroke of his pen in his lithographic circular from thence, bearing the post mark of August 26th, 1848, by which he cut off not only Bethesda, but all assemblies who received any one who went there. “I” he writes, “should neither go to Bethesda in its present state, nor while in that state, go where persons from it were willingly admitted; for this,” he adds, “involves the whole question of association with Brethren.” In all these actings of Mr. Darby one is struck with the entire absence of
