Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/349

 companies of such Christians are at least as favoured as themselves with tokens of God’s approval.

I am far from denying that God may bestow a measure of His blessing where there is a great deal of error and confusion. If he did not I fear there would be no blessing at all for the Church on earth. But I deny that His favours are so indiscriminately bestowed as to constitute no criterion whatever of His approval.

In view of the history of Brethrenism, it is a remarkable thing that it still exerts no mean power of attraction. It is idle to seek the explanation of this outside the real excellences of the sect. The Brethren handle spiritual topics with an absolute fearlessness. There is no apologetic tone,—there is no prudent dilution of the spiritual by the secular,—in their ministry. They may sometimes speak unwisely, illiberally, ignorantly; their system of ministry almost ensures the occasional entrance of the grotesque; but they speak as if religion were the one business of life, instead of allowing secular topics to encroach even upon the narrow limits of time ostensibly devoted to spiritual things. That they often compare favourably with their neighbours in this respect constitutes a main element in their strength.

The open ministry of the Brethren, whatever may be said for it on the side of pure theory, has been a very qualified success indeed in practice. Captain Hall complained of it bitterly fifteen years before his breach with Darby; and Mackintosh, who was its enthusiastic supporter, made (as we have seen) admissions that went far towards justifying Hall’s complaints. Yet Hall allows that the system had sometimes answered well.

“I have seen in other days, and thankfully remember it, a more deep and extended manifestation of God’s chastening presence,