Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/229

 duty or not, are already, by the very fact of their being Christians, in fellowship with the Brethren. Were it otherwise, they say, the Brethren would themselves be only a sect. Though Christians may not prize or even know their privileges, yet every acknowledged Christian has the same right to sit at the Table of the Lord as the most venerable Plymouth Brother. The leaders insisted strenuously that there could be no membership with “Brethren” other than membership in the Church of God. The Brethren could grant no additional title.

It is true that a candidate for fellowship among the Brethren was regularly visited by two or three brothers deputed for the task. But when the theory of Darbyism was strictly adhered to (which by no means always happened), this formality would be restricted to two cases: (1) the case of a person contemplating a public Christian profession for the first time; (2) the case of a person accredited indeed as a Christian amongst Evangelical people, but who had no local “brethren” among his acquaintances to introduce him to the meeting in that character. Suppose on the other hand that some “brother” introduced a visitor (if for the sake of clearness I may thus condescend to vulgar phraseology) as being notoriously an accredited Christian, though quite unassociated with Brethren, such a person being then and there admitted to communion could not possibly receive, or require, any subsequent recognition.