Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/219



The position of the Brethren has been assailed on two principal grounds. It has been said that the primitive model of public worship and ministry is inapplicable in our situation, and further, that the Brethren do not conform to it. An order suited to the state of churches endued with supernatural gifts is not, it would seem, obviously obligatory, or even probably suitable, in the case of churches from which all such enduement has utterly vanished. And even in the first ages, and at Corinth, it is urged that no such “present energy of the Spirit” is recognised as a guiding principle; that it rather appears that ministers came to the assemblies already in possession of what they should say (1 Cor. xiv. 26), and that the “commandments of the Lord” relate, not to the duty of free exercise of the gifts, but to the restrictions enjoined by the Apostle upon such exercise.

It is clearly unreasonable to deny the weight of these objections; yet, however unreasonable, it was what the Brethren were bound to do, unless they were willing to relinquish their all-excluding claims, and take their place in the crowd of the religiones licitce of Christendom. As this was the last thing in the world to which they could have brought themselves, they were compelled to insist that everything was plain and easy, and that “disobedience” was the only explanation of a refusal to follow their example. And further, in order to cast a rope, in default of a bridge, over the gulf that separated them from the primitive and supernaturally gifted churches, they adopted a vague theory of a Spirit-given ministry, and insisted still on their Christian brethren in every place following suit.

Their claim to be exclusively the recipients of the promised blessing of Matthew xviii. 20 will now be readily understood. No people could be said to meet in