difference in the circumstances of glory in the kingdom between the Old and New Testament saints. I demanded how he could be so violent as to a supposition that there might be such a difference, which was after all a settled idea of no one that I knew, when he had held and taught that they had not life. He replied, that is false. I said I knew it was not―but what had he taught? He said that they had not the new creature, I said I know I am right, but be it as you say. He replied, but I did not say they would not have it in another world. I said with astonishment: well! this is a new kind of life giving purgatory. They lived a life of faith without the new creature, and get it after their death―he replied, no they may get at the instant of dying.[1] I left it there. This conversation is referred to in the publication I now proceed to mention. It had been very widely circulated, as every one knows, at Plymouth and elsewhere, among rich and poor, that we denied that the Old Testament saints had life. This, and that I denied that redemption through the blood as to many, took away the gospels, Hebrews, and Revelations, from the Church, was the constant and assiduous charge by all the leaders at Plymouth, and still continues to be so.[2] I left them to destroy themselves which in every upright mind they soon did. At the time, however, I now speak of Mr. N. published a second letter on my Examination. In this, in the coolest and most deliberate way, he charges us, and me particularly, with the doctrine which he, and he alone, taught, and says that as people’s minds are exercised about it, I ought to explain myself on it. There is not even the excuse, itself absurd enough, that, though he had been brought out of it by those he charged with it, they bad themselves fallen into and propagated it afterwards: because in the publication in which the charge is he alludes to the discussion held about it in April.
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