Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/221

 plain that it abandons the ground of direct Scriptural evidence for that of comparatively remote inference. But the Brethren knew no misgiving. To refuse their inferences was as bad as to refuse their texts, and equally incurred the penalty of being unchurched.

In some places a special meeting for open ministry was held during the week. Social teas were commonly followed by an open meeting. Bank holidays were often the occasion of open meetings in the morning. Strangest of all, marriages and funerals were conducted on this principle, sometimes with painful results.

But the Brethren held themselves at liberty to arrange for evangelistic meetings of the ordinary form, Bible readings from the pulpit (which they commonly called lectures), and prayer meetings in which, though there was no president, it was understood that the exercises were ordinarily limited to prayers and hymns. The puzzle is to know how liberty of ministry can be so solemnly binding on some occasions, and not at all on others. The ordinary answer is that it is binding on occasions of a “church” character. The application of this principle is easy. When open ministry is desired, it is understood that the Brethren assemble in an ecclesiastical capacity; when it is not desired, the contrary hypothesis is at hand.

Captain Hall had a strong sense that the much-vaunted theory had come short in practice, and required revision. “In almost every case,” he says, “where the Holy Spirit does not act, the flesh does for form’s sake, and as long as two or three or more persons take a part, instead of one, the principle, as it is called, is not invaded, and all are satisfied, whether the thing done or said be good or bad.” In his judgment, the Spirit might be