Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/15

Rh George Muller and Anthony Norris Groves, Benjamin Wills Newton and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles?

In yet another respect special interest attaches to the story of the Brethren. On their narrow stage there are few of the tendencies of universal church history that have not been illustrated, and not many of its movements that have not been reenacted in little. The Brethren sought to effect a fresh start without authority, precedent, or guidance beyond the letter of Holy Scripture. For them, essentially, the garnered experience of eighteen Christian centuries was as though it were not. Such an experiment in the hands of eminent men could scarcely fail to yield a considerable harvest of interest and instruction; and it has actually shed, if I mistake not, a flood of light on many of the obscurities and incredibilities of the history of the Church.

The origins of Brethrenism are not perhaps particularly obscure; at all events, the materials for elucidating them are fairly copious. But the subject has been perplexed by the efforts of prejudiced controversialists. On the one hand, there has been a very natural tendency on the part of the adherents of the movement to invest its first days with the glories of a heroic age, and to magnify the heroes by assigning to individual light and energy a far greater and more decisive part than the ascertained facts at all warrant us in doing. This has even been pushed to the length of claiming the honours of at least a virtual foundership for Darby. On the other hand, by an equally natural reaction, it has been stated far too broadly and absolutely that Brethrenism was formed by the slow aggregation of a large number of little meetings which, quite independently of each other, had lighted almost simultaneously on the same principles of Christian communion and worship.