Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/235

 had any place among primitive institutions. And even were it otherwise, there is no sufficient analogy between a city of the Roman world and a modern English town to enable us to argue from the one to the other. Darby must have known perfectly that the city of old was a totally different kind of social and civic unit from the modern township. It would be distinctly more reasonable to infer from his texts the principle of national churches.

The Brethren, however, followed up the idea with a characteristic absence of misgiving. In 1860 the Priory meeting, Islington, (a centre of paramount importance, because Darby worshipped there whenever he was in town), excommunicated Alexander Stewart, a former minister of a Presbyterian Church, and a man of considerable pulpit gifts. The ostensible ground of the excommunication was that Stewart had “grievously violated the Lord’s presence at His table, and the consciences of the saints by forcing his ministry,” and had further “declared he had nothing to confess”.

The action of the Priory would necessarily be communicated to the rest of London through the Central (or London Bridge) meeting. But some of the London