Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/200

 assuming this to be the true interpretation of the passage, all whose exegetical dulness hindered them from seeing it to be so were to be judged as fully partaking in doctrines to which they never gave any quarter in the person of anybody who held them. The fact is that if there was sin in the Open Brethren it was nothing whatever but the old leaven of Congregationalism, and in no sense at all that “indifference to Christ” with which they were so freely charged by their adversaries.

Zeal for the truth, it is to be feared, had a great deal less to do with maintaining the graver charges against the Open Brethren than the exigencies of Darby’s ecclesiastical scheme. The Exclusive Brethren continued after the rupture with the Open section to grant what would generally be termed “occasional communion” to those whom, in the true High Church spirit, they designated as “members of the sects”. Had they done so to members of the Open meetings, it would have been impossible to maintain the distinction between the parties; for the Open Brethren, unlike “the sects,” conducted their worship exactly like the Parbyites, and to go to and fro between Open and Exclusive meetings would have been so simple and natural as to become an everyday occurrence. Therefore if Darby intended to preserve to himself the vineyard that he had reclaimed from the wastes of Neutrality at so much sacrifice to his reputation—and, let us hope, to his best affections—he was bound to find a pretext for treating the Open Brethren on quite a different footing from that on which members of “the sects” were accepted.

If this seem to be a harsh judgment of Darby, let the scheme he devised be dispassionately considered, and let us see whether a better construction can reasonably be put on his conduct. He laid down that the