It is alleged that I say Christ entered into the experiences of souls, &c., which I cannot find – this means in their minds that He had these experiences, & He is then considered as Himself involved in them from God, – and it is next added, it must be from the relationship He was in. Not one word of which I have ever said or thought. And it flows from the abominable false principle that Christ suffered only from atonement or sympathy, that is – that besides atonement, He never really suffered at all, & if there were any other, He must have been in the relationship which caused it. I must again express my astonishment that such doctrine, which is avowedly Mr. Hall’s, has not opened peoples eyes. The only real ambiguity I know in what I have written is in the word suffering, because suffering may have the sense of outwardly inflicted pain, & inward sense of any evil, & when I say Christ passed thro’ these sufferings, it may be taken as inflicted on Him (& as to circumstances outwardly in the main He did go thro’ them), or as inwardly entering into the pain & grief of it, in whatever way brought to His soul. As to His being in the relationship & meriting it (or as Mr. Hall wrote to me, God smote the wrong person), I can only look at it as an evil denial of all Christ’s true sufferings except atonement. But the ambiguous sense of the word suffering gives probably a handle to those who sought it. You will please to bear in mind, as to my not satisfying people, that I have answered everyone who has written to me. I much prefer giving people’s minds time to get clear on the subject, than being in any hurry to defend myself. I can trust the Lord, if they cannot, nor do I expect to satisfy the cravings of those who do not. When I think of what doctrine it would have been the acceptance of, I am quite thankful I did not withdraw my papers. As to the alleged entering into the experiences – allow me to ask: Do you think Christ can enter into the sorrows of a broken & contrite heart, fearful & pressed within? If so, further: Do you think what He went through on earth enables Him to do it in a special way? Yet it has nothing to do with His being contrite, tho’ I by no means think this is the highest way of looking at it. The true aspect of it all is objective, the man of sorrows & acquainted with grief. I believe I have no more to add as to the papers called in
