Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/237

 step, they wrote to the neighbouring meeting of Rotherham, offering to give an explanation of their reasons. The reply from Rotherham, dated November 29, 1863, is another landmark in the history of Brethrenism. It is also interesting as bearing a signature made familiar by the “C. S. tracts” to a wider circle than the Brethren. The initials denote Charles Stanley, the evangelist.

"“I am requested to say, that inasmuch as you have now placed yourselves in the same position as Mr. G., viz.:—outside the communion of the saints gathered together in the name of Christ in London, the gathering in Rotherham being in fellowship with those in London, cannot possibly receive any statement of the particulars of the matter, either written or by word of mouth. To do so they feel would be to ignore the discipline of the assembly in London, and practically to set aside discipline everywhere; as it virtually denies the unity of the body, and reduces every assembly to an independent congregation.”"

The following extract is taken from a letter that Darby wrote from the South of France, under date February 19, 1864, to Mr. Spurr, a member of the excommunicated Sheffield meeting. It shows that the penalties of excommunication were no shadowy ones. Darby would not so much as eat with a man who remained contumacious in the presence of the flat of his Central Committee.

“I understood the breach arose between you and Rotherham [i.e., between the Exclusive meetings at Sheffield and Rotherham] by reason of your reception of Goodall. With the main facts of his case I am acquainted, for I took part in what passed, and now allow me to put the case as it stands as to him. I put it merely as a principle. He (or any one else) is rejected in London. The assembly in London have weighed, and I with them, the case, and counted him as either excommunicated or in schism. I put the two cases, for I only speak of the principle. I take part in this act, and hold him to be outside the Church of God on earth,