Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/231

 the original bugbear of the Brethren. A visitor from New Zealand, if a communicant, had exactly the same right as a resident to attend and to address a meeting convened to regulate the ventilation, or to decide on the purchase of a new stock of hymn-books. When more serious matters were under discussion the inconvenience of this practice was liable to be keenly felt, and a local membership was perforce practically recognised. Persons who were not “Brethren,” and even in some cases visitors who were, had to be by hook or by crook excluded, if not from debates, at least from voting. Not that a vote was ever formally taken; but practically, of course, voting neither was, nor could be, avoided.

I believe that the Open Brethren pay little or no regard to this theory; but this only renders their claim to be neither sect nor denomination the less plausible. The Exclusives were the more consistent. Had they formed a voluntary association they would have been at liberty, they maintained, to make their own laws and choose their own members; but they had nothing to do with forming anything—their one duty was to own and “express” what God had formed. Therefore they could not acknowledge any man as a member of the Church of God by admitting him to the Lord’s Table, and then proceed to say to him, “We have now some family matters to discuss, and must ask you to retire”. A circle within the circle of the communicants was out of the question, as answering to no thought in the Divine mind. To this theory the great leaders clung, even when the force of circumstances seemed to have made every effort to realise it the merest pedantry; but its importance has never been grasped, except by the leading minds. In addition to all that might very reasonably be urged against it by practical men, it has laboured