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p131 [From the French.] * * * The word "friend" has a double meaning: my friend is a man to whom I can open my heart, and also a man who is kind and friendly towards me; but the term always implies a certain intimacy. The Jews called the Lord "a friend of sinners," and truly He was so. He called His disciples His friends because He had communicated to them all that the Father had given Him. Any familiarity with the Lord, such as one finds among the Moravians, impresses me painfully, and I consider it carnal, even when it is linked with piety. "He is not ashamed, to call us brethren." In this last sense, it is quite improper to apply this word to Jesus, and to call Him our Brother. In the instances which you quote, I think the style is too familiar. But if we say, 'What a wondrous Friend of sinners Jesus was when He gave Himself upon the cross!' or, 'What a Friend to His own is that Jesus who ever lives to intercede for us!' - the thought assumes quite another character. But we must avoid a freedom which is not becoming.

The meeting for breaking of bread is in principle the meeting together of all Christians in the unity of the body of Christ. Every Christian, then, has a right to share in it. But at the same time, in the present state of Christianity, we are called to maintain, scrupulously, faithfully, and with zeal, the holiness of the Lord's table. (2 Tim. 2:22.) Now the assembly is in no way a voluntary meeting of Christians who have chosen the assembly, for in that case it would be a sect. It is, so far as such a thing is possible now, the meeting of all the members of the body of Christ. We must have sufficient evidence that those who desire to take part in it are true Christians, and that their walk is moral, christian. Now, if they habitually meet with those who deny the truths of Christianity, they are defiled; and it is so also if they meet where immorality is allowed.

Difference in ecclesiastical views is not a sufficient reason for shutting out a soul. But if one wanted to be one day among the brethren, the next among the sects, I should not allow it, and would not receive such a person; for, instead of using the liberty which belongs to him to enjoy the spiritual communion of the children of God, he puts forward the pretension to change the order of the house of God, and to perpetuate the separation of Christians.

London, February.

[53114F]

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