BROOKLYN, N.Y., AUGUST 26TH, 1905
BROOKLYN, N.Y., AUGUST 26TH, 1905
Mr. J. Boyd.
My Dear Brother, — Your letter of the 16th inst. reached me two days ago. The letter from Mr. Reynolds to the saints in America had come a few days before. Mr. Reynolds’ letter is a painful affair: it is not only that it indicates unfairness in that it attacks certain notes of meetings which were not revised for publication and were of a private character, without first seeking to find out from the persons responsible whether their thoughts were accurately represented; but also that it shows grave departure from the truth on the part of the writer. Had the ‘Notes’ been intended for the press several of the things Mr. Reynolds objects to would not appear at all, and others would be greatly modified and guarded by the insertion of other truths which might seem weakened or denied. I had to go over them under very severe pressure, as the time was during the ‘busy season’ at my place of business, and I revised them only very superficially. Mr. Pellatt was in California and went over only one of them. It was believed they would be read with interest and profit by many (especially in this country, for whom, indeed, they were intended), and there was no anticipation that they would become the subject [p. 21] of public criticism. To make them (or what is contained in them) responsible for the Minneapolis trouble, is ridiculous. That trouble, as everybody knows, occurred before Mr. Raven’s last visit to America, and the facts of it were minutely enquired into during his stay here. When he (Mr. Raven) heard afterwards of the stand the brethren at Chicago had taken, his remark was: ‘It is a mercy Chicago has been so firm’. Both A——— and O’B——— knew me, and I never heard of either of them charging me with bad doctrine. So that Mr. Reynolds’ letter in this respect is valueless and proves him unqualified (because of ignorance of the facts) to pronounce on this matter at all.
As to your own letter, dear brother, I cannot say that it encourages me any more than does that of T.H.R. You know I am charged with error, and yet although you have had the means of proving whether the charge is just or the contrary within your reach (indeed you had the Notes some weeks) you have not availed yourself of them. You say: ‘I do not know of any one who justifies them’ (the ‘Notes’ ). I should have thought you would at least have desired (Job 33: 32) to do so; for you profess interest in me. I do not see any evidence of this desire in your letter; you do not look up the Notes, nor do you even ask me if these things are so. You enumerate some blessings that are said to be in Christ, and that man has to do with Him to have them, and then say, ‘I doubt very much if you object to all this; but it almost seems from what is quoted from you that you do’. ‘Almost seems:’ this is poor ground, dear Mr. Boyd, on which to base such a letter as you have written me. But I fear that ‘Almost seems’ means certainty for you; for you say lower down, ‘I am almost taking for granted that what has been said of them is what is in them’. Indeed, so far as your letter goes it is difficult to decide definitely what your mind is: First: ‘I doubt very much if you object to all this;’ secondly, ‘It seems ... you do;’ thirdly, ‘I am taking for granted that what is said of them’ (and ‘what is said of them’ means that I do deny it) ‘is true’. Then you say: ‘You must modify your thoughts’. What thoughts? I will gladly change my thoughts if you will show where they are contrary to Scripture; but, from your letter, you do not seem to be sure that my thoughts are wrong. You say, ‘I doubt ... that you object’. Now, I do not object: I accept fully that these blessings are in Christ and [p. 22] that men have to do with Him to get them. These things (forgiveness, salvation, life) have all been brought to pass by Christ, and are in Him; and they are available to man on the principle of faith. I do not weaken this at all; but if we stop here we have not found anything — I mean in a practical way. So that although salvation and life are presented as in Christ, yet the realisation of them depends on certain conditions established down here. This refers also to forgiveness; for this, too, is known by the Spirit. The conditions I allude to (I mean what was found in the assembly) were there before the gospel went out, and indeed without them we should not have the gospel. Now I shall be deeply grieved if it is shown that I have made defective statements, and that these are an occasion of sorrow, to my brethren. I shall withdraw them and own my wrong; but I cannot weaken nor modify what I have said above as to the gospel.
When I said the gospel did not arrest the attention of men I was commenting on Acts 2, and what I said was a simple statement of the facts presented in the chapter. I added, that the house of God arrested people’s attention. This is undeniable: it was the presence of the Holy Spirit (and the manner in which He, as dwelling in the house, is slighted in the different communications from your side strikes me greatly) in the saints that attracted the attention of the multitude. It is true that it was by “tongues”, but the point is not the effect, but the power that produced the effect. Peter says “This is that”, and “Hath poured out this which ye see and hear”. What produced the tongues on that occasion produces other things which are greater and which were to continue, such as righteousness, peace, joy, love, etc. By “the gospel” I meant, of course, Peter’s address: this was one thing: it was what Peter said by the Spirit, but the tongues represented the effect of the Spirit in the company. The speaking with tongues is not connected in the passage with the apostles: “sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues”. You say ‘Fitted by Himself to work ... apart from the church’. This is not true. The gifts were in the church (1 Corinthians 12). In all I have had to say about the church in this connection I have had before me what was at the beginning — as divinely formed and set up in the power of the Spirit. I cannot understand how speaking of it in this light as the receptacle of the different testimonies of God is [p. 23] belittling Christ, or placing these outside of Christ. The church is in Christ. To place the responsibility of the care of a man’s house in his wife when he is away from home is not belittling him, or in a sense placing the responsibility in another than himself; for if he has his proper place in her heart she is himself. It is remarkable that the Lord does not say, ‘The gates of hell shall not prevail against Me’, but, ‘against it’.
In conclusion, I would express the earnest hope that you will go into this matter fully and contend for the truth which the Lord has recovered for us. I do not pretend to have said anything on this point different from what others who have gone before have said; and I should have expected that you had been saying it all along. A letter of yours to ——— commenting on my paper on Canaan was a sorrow to me; not only because it rejects what I believe to be true, but because it contains unscriptural statements in regard to the abode of God and our eternal abode. I do not, however, go into this now.
Affectionately yours in Christ,
James Taylor.