Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/213

 the Darbyite, while not refusing to grant the indulgence of remarkably similar excuses, equally holds that every position (including of course the High Anglican’s) outside his own body is schism; and further, that it is schism maintained in the face of God’s convincing testimony to the unity of the Church, given in the shape of Plymouth Brethrenism.

The credit that we might be disposed to give to Darbyism for its moderation in not claiming to constitute the Church of God on earth must be seriously qualified by the extraordinary circumstance that it claimed the power to exclude from the Church of God by excluding from its own ranks. The theory was that any acknowledged Christian, though he had nothing to do with the Brethren, was inside the Church of God; but that the Brethren had the disciplinary power of the Church of God committed to them, because they alone met “on Scriptural ground”. Consequently, any person on whom they pronounced sentence of excommunication was by that act cast forth outside the Church of God on earth. Their claim in this particular is fortunately perfectly explicit; otherwise my statement might well be deemed incredible. Full proof of it will be found towards the close of the present chapter, in a brief account of a famous case of discipline in the early sixties.

Unhappily, the Exclusive party does not stand alone in the view that all non-Brethrenist worship is schismatic. Among the Open Brethren, a certain section (undoubtedly considerable, though I cannot say what proportion of the whole it constitutes) maintains the same opinion, and denies that any company of Christians meets in the name of the Lord Jesus, except those that practise open ministry. To such people it has proved vain to point out that they unchurch many a company