Am I a dog, that I should do this thing?" But passing this; is it not obvious that the main purpose of the whole course, enjoined on the disciples towards that wicked person, was their own profit, to purge out from among themselves that leaven, a little of which leaveneth the whole lump? And are these wise disputers against the wisdom of God quite certain, that the continued restriction on the familiarity of social intercourse with that wicked person was not graciously and wisely adapted to keep the minds of the brethren awake to the due abhorrence of his wickedness? Truly, if any of them felt the same pleasure in his society, as they might feel in that of one who had never been in the Christian connexion, their minds must think very lightly of his ejection from the kingdom of God, and of that which had occasioned it.

But let us suppose that we were unable to discern any of the ends designed by the wisdom of God in giving this precept; is not the precept given, in language as plain and unequivocal as words can convey it? And does it not become those, who fear God, to obey, even though unable to discern why he commands? Such certainly was the obedience of believing Abraham. Now what is the letterwriter's answer to this simple appeal to the Scripture? We shall give it in his own words:-' I admit an INFERENCE may be drawn from verses 9, 10, and 11. But (in a matter so momentous) we have a right to expect something in Scripture more explicit than an INFERENCE?'

We shall make no remark on the presumptuousness of that sentiment and language, save this; that, if the person who has adopted them be ever "recovered out of the snare of the devil," ( 2 Tim. ii. 26.) he will look back on that language and sentiment with deep abhorrence.

SOME REMARKS ON H. M.'s PRINTED LETTER.

LONDON, August 28th, 1829.

OUR printed Statement, dated June 2d, ended with the fact of the Church assembling in Portsmouth Street having declared their connexion dissolved with the body in Dublin, as a Sister-Church. I would briefly remark on this step, that some have been led to mistake its nature by pursuing a fancied analogy between it and the last act of discipline, in a Church removing from among them one of its own members. The connexion between Sister-Churches is not that either is an integral part of the other-but simply this: that they have such knowledge of each other, of the unity of their faith and walk, that a member of one visiting the other is ordinarily received into its fellowship upon the mere recognition of his being in fellow

ship with the acknowledged Sister-Church. In declaring that connexion dissolved we did but declare, that circumstances had occurred which interrupted that knowledge; (which cannot continue when either Church closes the door against scriptural communication from the other ;)—and therefore interrupted the confidence, which could not scripturally continue without it. We simply declared that, if one of the Dublin body should visit London, and desire to join our fellowship, we could not receive him without inquiry whether he repented of the evils, which we knew all of them had so long tolerated, and in which therefore all had more or less share.

I have regretted that the printing of our Statement was not delayed a few days, in order that it might have contained the mention of an additional fact, which I gladly take the present opportunity of introducing. We had scarcely received the copies of that paper from the printer, when a letter the most satisfactory arrived from those in Dublin, who had withdrawn from the opposers of the precept in 1 Cor. v. 11. and now hold their meetings in Stafford Street. This letter was so full, unequivocal, and decisive in the evidences it afforded of genuine repentance, that it enabled us on our next assembling to confirm our love towards them, and to restore them joyfully to acknowledged union with us as a Sister-Church.

M.'s pamphlet bears the date of May 22. In this there is probably a mistake of a month. I did not obtain a copy of it till three weeks ago. The task of animadverting on it I have undertaken with great reluctance; and at first indeed rather yielding to the judgment of others than following my own. Never have I prosecuted any similar task with so deep pain. How painful is it in my last days to meet as an opponent one whom I have known so long, esteemed and loved so highly! to meet such a man in a character altogether new! to be obliged to expose the weakness of one of the ablest men, and the unfairness of one of the most ingenuous, I could formerly have named! But "what is man?"-M. has written in heat and in haste. His flesh revolts against the scriptural principle, which he has long taken a lead in opposing. He has taken up his pen to maintain that opposition, and to increase the party who strengthen each other in it. Against a truth, the evidence of which has been plainly exhibited, it is hard for an able man to write honestly; and it is impossible for the ablest to write conclusively.

With every thing that M. throws out against human influence, in the things of the kingdom of God, most heartily do I concur. Our continual tendency to be determined in conduct and practice by it, instead of by the word of God, is part of the common ungodliness of our hearts. But let some connected with M. recollect, that they are in at least as much danger from that temptation, as any can be with me. It ought to be a very sobering consideration to both of us, that -whatever colour or currency human ingenuity or human influence may for a time give to falsehood,-yet sooner or later that word of the Lord Jesus shall be made good, "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." Matth. xv. 13.

It is with some art that M. (after awfully distributing the meed of his applause among some leaders in the rebellion) opens the subject

by a discussion, extending through nearly three pages, on Matth. xviii. 17, in which he sets up men of straw to knock them down, puts upon us assertions that we have never made, and otherwise diverts the eye of his reader from the point really at issue between us. Whom he intends to oppose in a great part of that discussion, I really do not know. But he knows well, that it is not on the interpretation of this passage in the Evangelist we have separated, but on the precept in 1 Cor. v. 11. the command to disciples not even to eat with such a character as is there described. That precept is explicit. We assert, and they reject it, in the only obvious and proper sense of the words. If any, in the course of the disputes on the subject, which were continued in their meetings so long,-if any, argued from the words of the other passage, "let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican," that they also must be understood as including a similar injunction, to abstain even from social intercourse in eating with the person removed from the fellowship of the Church, -(because at the time these words were uttered by the Lord, the Jews were still debarred from such intercourse with heathens) ;—if any have urged this argument, it is one which M. certainly has not even attempted to refute, in all the words which he has multiplied upon that passage. Yet I think it injudicious in any to quote it, for the purpose of establishing the precept in Corinthians: because the latter is express upon the point contested, while the former bears upon it only by implication. In short, if we had not the express command not even to eat with such a person, I am not sure whether the attempt to infer it from Matth. xviii. 17, might not with some plausibility be opposed by the consideration, that we are now at liberty to eat with heathens, or with those who have never been in Christian fellowship with us. The attempt therefore to draw that inference afforded the adversaries a point of attack at least.comparatively weak; and M. has dexterously availed himself of it, by putting this forward in the first instance, as a passage on which we found our view of the precept in 1 Cor. v. 11.

But I am sorry to say that there is still more dishonest artifice manifested in the way he treats those words, "let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican:" and the artifice which he employs here is of a species that pervades almost every page of his pamphlet. It is that of attributing to us sentiments which he has abundant reason to know we do not hold; and vehemently declaiming against those sentiments, as if he were in this refuting our errors. Thus, he employs more than two pages in contending that the terms heathen man and publican, 'designate those who are not of God, who are without ;' that the Lord uses the name of publican, as 'perfectly synonymous with the word sinner, or a wicked person:' and that when it is said let him be unto thee as a publican, it implies the same thing as the Apostle says, Put away from among yourselves that wicked person.' Now who denies any part of this? Certainly we do not: nor is it conceivable to me, how M. can be ignorant that we do not. As to myself, my language upon the meaning to be generally attached to the word publican in the Gospels, my language that I am sure has met his eye in print, to say nothing of what

he has heard times without number in our meetings, is (I think) as distinct and as strong as his. The following occurs in my remarks on the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, p. 540. The name

of Publican was equivalent with that of a wicked profligate. This is evident, from our finding publicans and harlots classed together in the New Testament, where we see the publican ranking proverbially with sinners of the very vilest description upon earth. See Matt. xxi. 31, 32; ix. 10, 11; xi. 19; Luke xv. 1, 2." &c.-And if—as would appear to be the case-some in Dublin have (as I think, injudiciously) referred to Matt. xviii. 17, as confirmatory of the precept in 1 Cor. v. 11, because they conceived that the words of the Lord necessarily involved a direction identical with the Apostle's; did these very men deny, or think of denying, that the former immediately and primarily imported a direction to the disciples equivalent with that of putting away the wicked person from among them? No: I confidently answer that they did not. And if M. really conceived that they did, when he penned these extraordinary pages, it could only be because the exasperation of mind in which he has written, prevented the exercise of calm and honest judgment. Ajax thought that he was destroying the chiefs of the Greeks, while he was but slaughtering harmless sheep and oxen: and M. has been really fighting against shadows, while he shall I say?— imagined that he was overthrowing us.

There is nothing else to be noticed in these pages but the arguments, which M. introduces by anticipation, that we adopt a species of discipline towards "one no longer subject to the discipline of the house of God, as having been put away from it." There was a species of wisdom in M.'s bringing forward this objection here; but I shall reserve the little that I have to say upon it for its proper place, and proceed to the consideration of the apostolic precept in 1 Cor. v. 11. This is the real matter at issue between us: and this being once established, all such objections against the wisdom of the divine command must be scattered into thin air, in the view of those who fear God and tremble at his word.

And here M. need not have laboured to prove, that throughout the chapter, "from first to last, the Apostle is speaking of the evil existing in the Church;" an evil which had existed awfully long, and which continued to exist among them at the time the Apostle wrote. This M. repeats over and over, and insists upon it vehemently, as if we denied it. But in insisting upon this, (which we would assert as strongly as himself) he takes care to involve this true assertion with an assumption of the falsehood which he maintains; namely that throughout the chapter the Apostle gives no command to the Corinthian disciples, besides that of excluding the wicked person whom they had retained among them from all CHRISTIAN fellowship with them; leaving them at liberty to associate with him in all the civil intercourse of life, as freely as with those who had never been within the household of faith. This, I say, M. gratuitously assumes, and thus jumps to his conclusion without any trouble of argument, by the paltry sophism called a petitio principii. We have asserted, and we maintain that- besides removing the fornicator from the Church, and consequently from all Christian fellowship with them,

the Apostle does, in the 11th verse, expressly restrict them from holding with him even that familiarity of worldly intercourse which (in the 10th verse) he remarks they were at liberty to hold with heathens. (D.) M. professedly writes to prove that no such restriction is imposed on the disciples in the 11th verse. And how does he pretend to prove it? By assuming it :-by asserting confidently, and repeating vehemently, that there is no command given throughout the chapter which was not fulfilled in the removal of the fornicator from the Church:-nay, even hardily asserting that the Apostle "tells them that he did not at all allude to worldly intercourse." (p. 10. see also p. 7.) But really no vehemence of declamation, or bold confidence of assertion, is equivalent with strength of argument or conclusiveness of proof:-though indeed too many writers substitute the one for the other, and the cheat passes upon too many readers. It is this alone that makes M.'s pamphlet dangerous.

Entering upon the subject, M. gives (pp. 4, 5.) what he appears to put forward as a summary view of the whole chapter. But I must say that he obscures it much, both by suppressing altogether the latter part of the 5th verse-" that the spirit may be saved," &c.— and by omitting the adversative conjunction " But" at the beginning of the 11th verse. Upon the first eight verses of the chapter it is not necessary that I should say much; as I am not aware of any disagreement between us as to their import. I should only wish to state distinctly, in order to supply M.'s omission, that the Apostle plainly marks a twofold object in the enjoined casting out of the wicked person from the Church :-the one object respecting the Church, that what defiled the temple of God, and was calculated to spread its defilement like leaven, might be purged out from among them; the other object respecting the offender himself, "for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." According to the latter of these objects, we are warranted to regard the act of the Church in casting him out from among them into the world that lieth in the wicked one as an act of mercy to the offender, a step to be taken in the view and hope of its being blest for his recovery to repentance; as undoubtedly their having so long tolerated and retained him in their fellowship had been calculated to harden him in his wickedness. But it is the less necessary for me to insist that the Apostle does put forward this second object, as M. himself admits it in his 13th page. And I am quite ready to admit that, of the two objects presented to the view of a Church in such a case, the former-the purging out of the old leaven from among them-is the more immediate and primary, as that which is to be effected, even though the other object were never to be attained. Well then; we are agreed that the Corinthian Church, in putting away from among them that wicked person, did (if they acted according to the mind of the Spirit in the Apostolic command) take that step in a merciful view towards him, and in the hope of his recovery from the snare of the devil. Would that I could engage H. M. to consider calmly the question, which I now press on the attention of disciples! Did that merciful view and hope cease the same hour, in which his removal from the Christian body took place? It is absurd to