He had withdrawn because the principles were abandoned, and it was asserted that no one could leave the Church and he was excommunicated. I know it has been sought to show that this met the mind of others. Some may very likely have been under the influence of the same principles, so that I should not deny this in a measure: but the excommunication was refused to be received by two bodies of the brethren, and at last the most of the other brethren at Exmouth took courage and restored him. It is alleged, that government and order are rejected. But let it be remembered that it was Mr. N. who deserted and broke up the Friday meeting: a point on which we shall see more just now. And, as to the brethren who laboured according to what was given them as servants of all, to administer and guide as helpers of the body, Mr. Batten, in the counties I here refer to, (and he acted on the same principle elsewhere), urged that five cyphers never could make one : a statement which became such an accredited one, that it was repeated elsewhere by another as original, so that I was very near getting into a scrape by attributing it to him before those, who had heard it from another. The excellent answer of a brother in those parts then was, that if the spirit of God was there as one before them, the five cyphers would be 100,000.
All this be it remembered had happened before I came back to England. Mr. Batten himself urged the point on me soon after I came. Yet, when things began to come out, it was repeatedly urged upon me, that some things had happened as accidents, but, that there was no plan nor principle in it. It closed at Wellington by some of the leading brethren stating to Mr. Newton in what terms I do not pretend to know, that they could not be distracted by these proceedings any more.
Mr. Harris went to Ireland, and was very happy there, with the brethren who were the great objects of Plymouth denouncement.[1] This, after the open avowal of
- ↑ At the April meeting of 15, when I referred to the sister
