My action over the excommunication of Mr. Brininger, necessarily made the question of further ministry and

fellowship a problem for us all. In order to save the work from collapse, I agreed to the humiliating condition that

I continue for another six months, but although still responsible for the Aldgate Mission, for the rest of that period I

took with me a written paper which I had to read without comment! And when I eventually left, no one was told the

reason but most felt that I had fallen into some disgrace which was being very kindly hushed up for my sake.

The letter that we reproduce here is dated 23/1/59, and is inserted as a first hand unsolicited reflection which we

believe is necessary in the interest of truth. It is purposely left unsigned, but the original is in our files:

`Dear Mr. and Mrs. Welch,

Now to thank you for your letter of good wishes and the photographic memento. When Paul said in 1

Thess. 2:17 `to see your face with great desire', I doubt whether a `photograph' would have satisfied him,

don't you?

It is just over twelve years since I became acquainted with you both and the testimony for which you have

stood for over 50 years, and though it has meant and still means the loss of `fellowship' I still rejoice before

God for having been privileged to see the face of Jesus Christ unveiled more fully than ever before by this

ministry.

There is much that one could say, but speaking personally, it has always been a matter of first importance

to me, since salvation, to become assured that what a man may say, is in fact what God says. The result has

been a progression out of one position into a better one.

I believed in `verbal inspiration' before I met you, but your treatment of the Word in demonstrating by

structure the key words in their God given settings, has given that catch-phrase (i. e. verbal inspiration), a

truer meaning than ever in my estimation.

Again and again I have rejoiced in spirit to see the careful analysis of words and their correct application.

`What is chaff to the wheat saith the Lord?' I am glad too that this method of teaching the Word is not

exclusive, by which I mean, you are not afraid to compare and study the writings of other believers and

wherever possible to make this evident in your conclusion.

Perhaps you would like to know what it was that, as far as I can remember, became a deciding factor with

me in accepting that the `church' of the Acts is not in being today. As you know, it was part of Mr.

Heward's belief that Peter and the rest of the apostles erred in their appreciation of the `mind of God' (a

favourite phrase with him), hence `their mistakes' in practice. Hence the very first recorded question of the

apostles is a mistake! Instead of being a clue an index to their state of mind induced by the Lord's instruction

during 40 days when He opened the Scriptures and their minds to receive them! How I rejoiced when, by

you simply referring me to Luke 24:45 I was able to regard the apostles as being, at least as intelligent as I

am, and not stupid clots. The Lord did indeed have to chide them for being foolish and slow to believe all

that the prophets had spoken, but surely part of that stupidity consisted in the fact that they did not at that

time perceive how restoration would come via Christ's death and resurrection, and not in their expectation of

Luke, at the beginning of his gospel in chapter 1:32,33,67-79 etc., and at the end in 24:21, shows that

Restoration of the Kingdom dominated the mind and rightly so. Then another `mistake' was the choice by

lot of Matthias! But again, you refer me to the Lord's words in John 15:27, and the Psalms which spoke of

Judas, confirmed again by the Lord at Passover; all of which became just reasons for Peter's decision. I saw

how feeble was the attempt to thrust Paul among the apostles for the sufficient reason that John 15:27

disqualified him. Added to which Paul's own testimony in 1 Corinthians 15 disassociated himself from the

Did you know how P W H. argued out of that difficulty? He said that the Holy Spirit gives us a hint that

Matthias was not really an apostle because wherever we read `the twelve' the word `apostles' is omitted, and

where we read `the apostles' the word `twelve' is omitted! This is clutching at straws with a vengeance.