all that “corporate action,” so demanded and so boasted in. The moment any act of importance has to be performed, the very semblance of a corporate church responsibility is set aside, and the entire guidance of the Spirit is made virtually to centre in his own individual person. “I should not go to, nor receive from Bethesda” is quite sufficient, and on this have most of those been acting, who would now claim an individual conscience in the matter.
In the primitive church, when a matter touching the welfare of the church at large was taken up by the Apostles, after a solemn meeting of the elders and of the whole church in the name of their Master, they say “It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and to us,” acting under the highest and only commission the church has ever known; but in the present instance, as if Spirit and Apostle, church and council, all centred in one man, Mr. Darby writes in the first person, and says that obedience in the matter involves “the whole question of Brethren.” It doubtless involves the whole question of the party who have submitted themselves to the control of him who utters it, but God be praised that His church is bound to no such assumption, and gives allegiance to no such decretal.
In this circular, Mr. Darby in the face of all that he knew of the facts of the case, makes the following statements, charging Bethesda with “diligently seeking to extenuate and palliate Mr. Newton's doctrine;” with “admitting persons holding them;” with “receiving active and unceasing agents of Mr. Newton, holding and justifying his views;” and lastly, with having “formally and deliberately admitted these doctrines.” We have a God to deal with who is emphatically a God of truth, and by him will all these false statements be weighed, which, passing current under the sanction of the name of their author, have withered up and blighted all those spiritual affections which grow only in the loving exercise of that divine charity which “rejoices in truth,” and, without possessing which, a man may “give his body to be burned, and his goods to feed the poor,” and it profit him nothing; or he may “understand all mysteries and all knowledge,” and yet be “nothing” after all. When this thirteenth of first of Corinthians in the light of heaven shall be brought to bear on all this fearful untruthfulness at the judgment seat of Christ, we shall then know His thoughts and hear His verdict.
