Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/215

 ,—“I am satisfied that any Christian of the sundry parties around us, except the close Baptists, could say, with a bold and free spirit, I meet with my fellow Christians in the name of the Lord Jesus simply”.

The central point in the system of the Brethren, and that which emboldens them to put in such exclusive claims, is liberty of ministry,—or perhaps I ought rather to say, the association of liberty of ministry with the observance of the Lord’s Supper. The want of this as a settled practice disqualifies all other communities. This is the real differentia. Some of the Brethren would wish no doubt to go deeper. They would say that they alone claim a true Church basis, as meeting in Christ’s name; and that other denominations are self-excluded by owning their several denominational titles. But this is utterly futile, not only because it is intrinsically absurd, but also because in exceptional cases of isolated evangelical communities, less encumbered with denominational designations than the Brethren themselves, all recognition is equally withheld if liberty of ministry be lacking.

Darby treated open ministry as an inference (vital indeed in its importance) from the deeper principles underlying a right conception of the Church; but, as we have already partly seen, he never reached any