p286 Miss Hayes, I should not admit the cross to be the principle of union, because I cannot admit the work of Christ to be the bond exclusive of His Person. The cross may gather all, both Jew and Gentile, but they are gathered to Christ, not to the cross; and the difference is a most important and essential one, because it is of all-importance that the Person of the Son of God have His place. Christ Himself, not the cross of Christ, is the centre of union. The two or three are gathered to His name, not the cross. The scripture is uniform in its testimony as to this.

But further, where saints are gathered in unity, without any questionings, they have the truth and holiness to guard. It never was, and I trust never will be, the notion of brethren, that the truth of Christ's Person or godliness of walk was to be sacrificed to outward unity. It is making brethren of more importance than Christ; and even so, love to the brethren is false, for if true it is, John assures us, "love in the truth and for the truth's sake." Supposing a person denied the divinity of Christ, or the resurrection of His body, still declaring his belief in the cross - supposing he declared his belief in the cross and resurrection, but declared it was only a testimony of God's love, and no substitution or expiatory value in it, as many clergymen of high reputation in the Establishment now do - is all this to be immaterial? I shall be told that no true believer could do this. In the first place, a true believer may be seduced into error; and further, the test offered becomes thus the opinion formed that a man is a true believer, and not the plain fundamental truth of God and His holiness.

Indeed, the letter betrays its own inconsistency, for it says, "brethren gathered round the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ?" Quite true; but what person? Would it be equal if He were owned to be God, or if it were denied? Or if He were the Son of God, the object of His Father's delight at all times - or if He were a man - or if He were really risen from the dead? I can hardly doubt the writer would say no. I am supposing all this. I answer then, your letter is all a fallacy, a delusion, and denies itself and its principles in the same page. For that is what I insist on, that I must have a true Christ, and that I am bound to maintain the truth of Christ in my communion. I am aware that the letter states we can deal with conduct (with morality) but not with these questions. But this is just what appears to me so excessively evil. Decency of conduct is necessary for communion; but a man may blaspheme Christ - that is no matter; it is a matter, not of conduct, but of conscience! It is hinted, that perhaps if it be a teacher, he may be dealt with. In truth, the apostle desires even a woman not to let such a person into her house. It is not therefore so difficult to deal with. Just think of a system which makes blasphemous views of the Person of Christ - what may amount to a denial of Him - to be a matter of private conscience, having nothing to do with communion! And here is the very root of the question. I raise one before all their reasoning. I affirm that that is not a communion of believers at all, which is not founded on the acknowledgment of a true Christ. Where the truth as to this is commonly held and taught, I may have no need for particular inquiry. But that is not the case here. If I find a person even in such a case, denying the truth as to Christ, communion is impossible, because we have not a common Christ to have communion in. But here all faithfulness is thrown overboard. No call to confess a true Christ is admitted: it is a new test or term of communion! Mr. N. himself, and others holding his doctrines, have been invited or admitted. It is said we are to meet as Christians. But a man is not a Christian who professes a false Christ. The letter would have me judge the state of a person's heart. I cannot, while his profession is false: I may hope he is only misled, but cannot accept his profession.

I am quite aware that it will be said, But these individuals do not hold these views. If wholly and not wilfully ignorant it is another matter; but we have to do with another case where, the views being held, they are declared to be a matter of private conscience; that a false Christ is as good as a true one, if a person's conduct is good - we can judge only of the last! Now this principle is worse than the false doctrine, because it knows the falseness and blasphemy of it, and then says it is no matter. I do not own - meetings as meetings of believers, for fundamental error as to Christ is immaterial for communion - a matter, the letter tells me, not of conduct but of conscience. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead." Be it so. Suppose a person held He was a mere man, and quoted the passage to prove that God raised Him, and made Him Lord and Christ, would he be received? If not, you do try whether a man has the faith of God's elect. If not a Socinian is admissible as a believer; or you make your opinion of his being a believer the test, entirely independent of the faith of Christ. I go further. It is said you can only require a person to say he receives all in scripture as true. The supposed Socinian would accept such a test at once. They do so. Why should you ask even that? A man may be a believer and a rationalist in theory (sad as such a thought is) and not accept all as the word of God, and say, I am a believer in the cross - you have no right to make a difficulty. If after this you object to any doctrine or insist on any truth, you have not even scripture to lean on against his denial of it. Scripture says, "Whom I love in the truth and for the truth's sake;" the other says it is no matter. You think the person a "spiritual believer;" the truth of Christ is no matter, a false one is just as good.

I add no human doctrine to a divine one. I make no term of communion besides Christ. I require that those who have blasphemed Him should not be admitted. I am told that it is a matter of conscience, &c., and that people cannot read doctrines to know whether He is blasphemed or not. These blasphemers have been received deliberately, received avowedly, received upon the ground that no inquiry is to be made; and therefore the plea of additional bonds or terms of communion is all dust thrown in the eyes. Is it a new term of communion to affirm that faith in a true Christ, not a false one, is called for for communion, and that blasphemers of Christ are not to be received? That is the true question. If a person thinks they are not safe in reading the publications, how are they safe in fellowship and intimacy with those who have written or refuse to disown them? I confess I do not admire this argument. Simple believers do not hesitate much, reasoning minds do. Ask a simple believer if Christ had the experience of an unconverted man. He would soon say, I will have nothing to say to any one who says so. A reasoning mind might make it a mere matter of personal conscience. Is the truth of Christ's Person and His relationship to God a variety of judgment on a particular doctrine? Here is the whole question - value for Christ and the truth as to Himself.

The question of 1 John 2:19 is a formal avowal that if a person was professedly an antichrist, denying the Father and the Son, he is to be received. It is a matter of doctrines [underlined in the letter]. Purging out the old leaven, according to this paragraph, is keeping it in till it goes out of itself. The real manifested enemies of Christ are to be kept in communion - the deniers of His Person and of all faith: they will withdraw! It is well to have met an avowal of the principles of the - gathering. It is, I confess, a little difficult to understand how a real believer can say so. … I do not require definitions; what I require is, that when blasphemous definitions have been made, the blasphemers should be rejected. I do not see anything so very deep in saying that Christ had the experience of an unconverted man, and that He was relatively further from God than men when they had made the golden calf, and [that He] heard with an attentive heart the gospel of John the Baptist, and so passed as from law under grace. Is it the shibboleth of a party to reject with horror such doctrines? Or is it faithfulness to Christ to attenuate them by saying that in such deep doctrines we shall not express ourselves alike: only disquisitions on the force of the Greek word αἵρεσις … Heresy in scripture language is not a division - but that is no matter.

The reference to the Ethiopian (Acts 8:37) is unhappy, because it is recognised to be no part of scripture, and probably was added when they applied some test. The assertion about Romans 16:17 is a very poor evasion of the text. There is not the smallest pretext for saying that it refers to the unity of the body; which is not at all the subject of the epistle, being only briefly alluded to in chapter 12 in reference to practice. "Cause divisions" is referred to; but there is nothing to divide; if there be not a true Christ as the basis of the meeting, there is no true unity at all. The reference to the Galatian church is an unhappy one. That epistle was not written about discipline, nor could it be, but to bring back the whole body of the saints in many churches to sound doctrine. But it shews that false doctrine was more terrible in the apostle's mind than the worst false conduct: not a wish of kindness, not a salutation, not a gracious word - he breaks in at once with rebuke and reproach, and closes with resentful coldness - while in Corinthians, where the most horrible wickedness was committed and gloried in by all, he says all the good of them he can.

It is not practical love to love them, not for the truth's sake, but to comfort them in blaspheming Christ - saying it is a matter of conscience. It is not real love to the members, nor love for Christ's sake, to despise Christ so as to bear blasphemers against Him. I have certainly not left the Establishment to accept blasphemers. I do repudiate the creed of a Socinian, or a Mormonite, or an Arian. If the writer does not, I am sorry for it. It is all nonsense talking about anything in a tract being a test. The truth of the Person and glory of Christ in a tract or out of a tract, is a test for those who are faithful to Him. I cannot talk of liberty of conscience to blaspheme Christ, if by liberty of conscience is meant, as it is here, communion.

January 14th, 1860.

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