As the pressure from without became greater, and Bethesda began to discover that her conduct had stumbled thousands of God's saints, and was giving occasion to so much division and controversy, a meeting was held in that chapel, October, 1848, for the purpose of clearing the assembly of all charges of fellowship with Mr. Newton's false doctrines or the holders of them. On this occasion Mr. Muller gave his own individual judgment of the tracts. He stated that the writings of Mr. Newton contained a system of insidious error, not here and there, but throughout; and that if the doctrines taught in them were followed out to their legitimate consequences, they would destroy the foundations of the gospel, and overthrow the Christian faith. According to these doctrines, he repeated, " the Lord Himself would need a Savior as well as others." Still, while giving so strong an individual judgment as this, Mr. Muller added that he could not say Mr. Newton was a heretic, that he could not refuse to call him brother.
After the lapse of thirty years and quietly looking at these recorded facts, we think them strangely inconsistent. The author of doctrines that would leave us to perish without the Christ of God is surely a heretic; and how could we call him brother? And how could there be a brotherhood? At the same time, Mr. Muller was most careful in maintaining that what he said was not the judgment of the church, but his own individual judgment, for which he alone was responsible. As to the paper of " the Ten," and all the steps connected with it, he justified them entirely, and said that, were they again in the same circumstances, they would pursue the same course.
But the general feeling was now become so strong, that the leaders saw it would be necessary to go more fully into the question; and although they had stated at the beginning of the troubles that it would be wrong for them to investigate and judge the false doctrine, and so get entangled in the controversy, they were now forced to own it was needful and right to examine the tracts. But the sad mischief was done: fifty or sixty godly brethren had been forced out of Bethesda from the leaders positively refusing to judge the false doctrines, and numbers throughout the country were thrown into a state of perplexity, sorrow, and strife. In the November and December of 1848, seven church meetings were held, and Mr. Newton's tracts were examined. The conclusion come to was, " That no one defending, maintaining, or upholding Mr. Newton's views or tracts should be received into communion." But this conclusion left the door as wide open, as ever to those who were in avowed fellowship with Mr. Newton, provided they did not defend, maintain, or uphold his views or tracts. Few would have the frankness to do this, though many at that time were tainted with his heresy. "The letter of the ten" remained unrepealed and unrepented of, and continues to this day as the studied and deliberate statement of the real ground of Bethesda fellowship.