I own the Church—to be an habitation of God through the Spirit;-the place of light and truth;-the place for ingenuousness;—and inevitably the place of judgment,—for the Lord judges it, if it does not judge the evil in its midst.
To assert—either, that any of its members (as quickened by the Spirit) is not competent and responsible to bring any known evil into judgment, on the one hand;-or, that any of its members (by virtue of office) is above its judgment on the other,-I hold to be a denial both of the presence of the Holy Ghost and of the Lordship of Christ.
The present tract contains matter which many will at once condemn me for printing. I have pondered the step, however, ere taking it. The facts of the case, viewed in the light of the sanctuary, require me to take it; and I am persuaded that the mind which condemns me will be judging rather according to appearances than according to righteous judgment. I may go farther, and state that I believe that every sound christian mind which fairly considers all the facts of the case, must approve my doing what I do.
To the heedless reader I expose myself to the charge of the breach of all gentlemanly feeling, as well as of the law of copyright; because the heedless reader will think that I am publishing part of a private correspondence not addressed to myself. The facts of the case, however, are quite otherwise. With the letter as a private communication I have nothing to do; I never knew it in that character, and I was not the publisher of it, though I have a right now that others have published it, so far to modify its circulation as to deliver the souls of the little ones.
Let us look at the case. A man has so far organized a party throughout England as practically to have agents all over the country for the dissemination of his principles. Some papers are sent by his emissaries from Plymouth through a series of persons resident in different parts of the country, so many days being allowed to each for perusing or copying the manuscripts ere forwarding them. And this is frequent. A sort of Depot is thus formed on every side. The understanding at these places, is that the papers may be shown wherever they will do good, but great discretion to be used. The poor, simple ones in the neighborhood are often deluged with these papers any teacher in the place having heard by report of any one of these papers, asks for a sight of it, he is refused, until Mr. Newton's leave has been obtained. This leave has been peremptorily refused, when the teacher was one whom Mr. Newton was trying to underwork. And further, a grave and moral teacher when indoctrinated by Mr. N., was told to act upon his principles, but that he need not avow then.*** Sisters, moreover, distinctly told what they may, and what they may not read. I could, if needful, mention places, north, south, east, and west, in England, let alone the other countries in Great Britain, Europe, America, and Asia (as to Africa, I know nothing, though I have my suspicions that the Cape, at least, could show the same manuscripts, or some of them), which have agents such as I refer to:—not paid or formally commissioned, yet bona fide agents of the system. Now here is a system, as I regard it, of Satan's development and energy, and the less of human intention there has been in the building of it, only so much the more of Satanic power. Two or three hundred copies of the circulating medium of this new sect are thus brought into existence, and I call this publication. To say it is not publication, because, forsooth, the work is not in print and on sale is what I call a disingenuous quibble. And Mr. N. and employees are the publishers. I consider too, that when the secret instruction to the order of Jesuits was discovered in MS., he, into whose hands it fell, was quite free, and bound, if he loved the saints, to print it.
(** Two brothers from different countries, both conversant with this system, (one of them just escaped from its influence), have declared that Michelet's exposure of Jesuitism, in a book entitled Priests, Women, and Families, is fraught with instruction, as to the principles of these Plymouthists. This book I never saw. I do not advise any one to read it.)
The-Letter is a singular one, containing a sort of double entendre, fitted on the one hand to mislead the unwary, and on the other to be a refuge to the misleading; while at the same time to the intelligent reader it presents the solution of all the apparent discrepancy between the principles avowed in, and the practice of Ebrington Street, and at the same time its untruthfulness is plain to any one acquainted with the facts it refers to. I say this, as showing the desirableness of brethren generally reading it.
And now I will state what, as it seems to me, I have done, and how far I really stand committed. There is a paper which all will feel Mr. Newton had no right, as a gentleman or a man, to circulate at all, without Mr. Eres's leave. We will take for granted that he had that leave, as far as he or you please; and that he has not overstept the leave given to him in allowing this paper to get upon the list of his copyists' publications. So far all may be well, and I have no right to interfere. But what is the next step? Why some sisters introduce it in a serpentine, stealthy trail into the church of the living God. There I meet with it, in more places than one, recognize its character as being unsuited to the Holy place, and drag it from the shade into the fair day-light. Whatsoever makes manifest is light. That such undercurrents are proper for the Church of the living God let who will believe: I do not think so. On the contrary I believe it to be the solemn though painful duty for every one that has competency to challenge, to lay hands on, and drag out into the light all such documents. Any Christian who finds such things in God's Church, is, as it seems to me, free to nail them up outside the door, with or without or against the consent of the publishers. And for any one to pretend to be a watcher for God's name and his brethren (however feebly) and yet to allow such things to go undetected and unrebuked, would be folly if found defiling the Church of the living God.
It seems to me that we are all verily guilty in having allowed the five MS. letters to be circulated during the last few years; letters so evidently sectarian and separative. Watchful wisdom and energy would, I believe, have called the author to account before the saints at their first appearance. This was not done, and we have had to escape a heresy characterized by a dark delusion, sectarianism, and untruthfulness almost incredible. I repent of this as also that when Mr. Newton made statements to myself derogatory to the Divine glory of the Son of God, and other statements were credibly reported to me denying that Christ had human feelings, I did not seek to call him to account. What is past must rest between God and our humbled souls. But now that I am outside the camp again, God helping me, I will not allow the deceptive process to go on, where I am, unmanifested. To the world in Plymouth Ebrington Street is the " Puseyism" of Brethren.
And here I may state, further, that my own domestic circle and the Church which, through grace, is in my house, has been the scene of the working of this leaven.
I will name three instances. A copy book, six years ago was left by some zealous partisan of the system, on my dining-room table at Camdentown. Who was to blame? Mr. Newton? he was at Plymouth. It was his paper sure enough, but I could not suppose he sent it. Whose hand put it where it was found? No one could tell. In whose hand was it written? Nobody knew. [Since I have found out by a singular circumstance that it is Miss Jeremie's handwriting.] Again, a sister in town last Autumn brought to her own house from a depot of MSS. (directed thither I understood by Mr. Newton himself) a MS. (This depot had been five or six months existent, the guardian of the MSS. a person constantly speaking against Mr. Newton, but acting for him. It was only the fact I refer to which brought the existence of such a depot to my attention). A friend of the sister brought the paper to my house -the paper was injurious and untruthful. The member of my household to whom it was brought, very wisely brought it to me for a judgment, which I gave. Again a paper of one just returned from Plymouth was brought to me as received by a friend staying in my house, so slanderous and calumnious that I begged it might be given to me. My wife and child and household shall not be subjected to such trials or to the example of things done in so immoral and demoralizing a way. But how can I prevent it? Captain Wellesley and Mr. McAdam may refuse to soil their own hands by receiving any such questionable underhand papers. This is well. And their plainly saying so before the saints was well. But it will not act on those transgressing in the matter. They have no shame. I shall try another plan, and that is, expose to the public all such papers.
To be quite plain-I believe distinctly that Satan. is using Mr. Newton (unconsciously) to defile the Church of the living God by the mode and matter of his underhand publications, and that the poor of the flock are despised. The systematic untruthfulness surpasses everything I ever met with-it is in God's house; often about God's people; and about God's things; and if not actually about God himself, yet about offices and actions in which God is supposed to have been the energizing Power. If in myself the chief of sinners, I have as a saint to preserve my soul from tolerating such evil; how can the evil of these publications (in which the leaven is) be stopped? By their being forced out into the light. But who has a right to touch them? Whose are they? Are they mine? My heart sees quite clearly where the lion is; but I answer boldly, Christ had a right to overthrow the table of the money changers and drive out of the temple the sellers and buyers. Neither the money nor the doves, &c. were his: but God's claim was paramount to all: so verily though these things are not mine, I can say that the Spirit of Christ has a right in any one to lay the hand upon that which defiles the temple and force it into light. Private end I have none to answer. If Satan is angry-the Lord's sheep are worth suffering for, if it be that they may escape; and though Satan and man may accuse, if Christ and conscience acquit and approve, all will be well. I appeal to the Church of God who is to blame, Mr. N. or myself? Yea, whether the forcing into light such documents is not praiseworthy.
And if Mr. Newton supposes that when papers are being issued from his own peculiar friends as papers of his-(calculated to mislead the saints-in a mode which is undermining all moral feeling in the Church of the living God and in the domestic circle,) that I shall allow him to plead part proprietorship, and to prevent my so putting the papers into the light as the positive untruths they contain may be seen by all-he miscalculates. Come what may, he will not so screen himself.
I would just remark that because some sisters have so far forgotten themselves as to have allowed themselves to be debased to become the mere tools of a party, it is not to be thought for a moment that this is the case with all, or (blessed be God) with most of them. If some have acted and others are acting so improperly as to require that their names be mentioned in rebuke before the world for their misdeeds, it is a common shame to the family; and if, as a husband, a father, and a brother, I feel indignant at what degrades the female sex, it is indignation for them against their degraders.
As to the letter-observe the date. It is a mark as to Ebrington Street:-1st, as connected with the recognition of the Guides, " of 'whom there are at present three or four;" 2ndly, it is within six weeks of that letter which Mr. Hill in part answered. In which letter they complain that even personal veracity is impeached.
It is not truthful to speak as though not more than four or five persons had been stopped in ministry in 14 years, and then only by those who addict themselves to the ministry. Mr. Newton autocratically stopped Mr. Hill. And in London alone there are three whose ministry was interfered with at Plymouth. Neither did the plan always succeed so well as it is said.
As I was in Plymouth at the beginning, I must utterly deny that the process recommended to Mr. Eres is a true account of what we did; it is the very opposite.