Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/154

142 may have entertained or do entertain on the subject of His connexion with Israel.” But the most significant statements are those that relate to the question of the mortality of Christ’s body. This question was rapidly becoming paramount over the whole field of the controversy, and we shall often encounter it again. The present statement of belief on the subject should be carefully observed by all who wish to form a complete opinion on the great disruption of Brethrenism. “He thus took a human body which was mortal, by which we mean a body capable of dying. … He possessed life essentially in Himself. He was the Holy One of God. He had also a claim to live as the one who in all things obeyed the will of God … and besides, he could not die, except according to God’s purpose as the sacrifice.”

In taking up this ground, the Ebrington Street congregation was not merely standing on the defensive. Some of their adversaries, taking fright at doctrines that they judged to glance in an Arian direction, were finding refuge in a kind of Gnostic denial of the true manhood of Christ. The following statement by Tregelles may be taken as minutely accurate, not only because of his well-known remarkable memory, but also because there is plenty of corroborative evidence. He expressly states that several of the doctrines he quotes were put forth by men reputed to be teachers.