William Blair Neatby

“ Clarence Stuart of Reading, a Brother whose reputation for learning and piety stood high among them. His offence was that he taught that the “standing” of a Christian is complete through his faith in the Atonement, independently of his personal union with Christ as risen from the dead; that this union is a “condition” of added privilege, and that it had been an error of the Brethren not to distinguish duly between “standing” and “condition”. ”

“ Though the Exclusive Brethren have undoubtedly had very powerful evangelists, whose success under the disadvantages that they accepted was remarkable, people who plumed themselves on their spirituality considered that the labours of such men bore a humiliating resemblance to the labours of “the sects”—that is to say, of all evangelical denominations except their own. ”

“ While the wiser sort are awaking to a perception that the action of their principles has now made Darbyism a spectacle to Christendom, others are so infatuated that every fresh disruption is hailed as another step in the path of sanctity ”

“ The Brethren of an earlier generation would have been safer if, instead of yielding themselves to a passionate revulsion from Newton’s errors, they had listened to the warnings of such men as Craik and Tregelles, and had soberly set themselves to judge righteous judgment.
Associated with this error, there was a tendency among Mr. Raven’s disciples to deny that anything that linked Christ with the bodily infirmities of mankind, or even with its natural human sympathies, could be an “expression” of the Eternal Life. ”

“ Whatever their weaknesses, the Open Brethren have their great and characteristic virtues. Theological learning, it is true, is now at a very low ebb among them. On the other hand, they are emphatically a Bible-reading and Bible-loving community, and are comparatively free from that morbid craving for novelties by which the later stages of Darbyism have been marked. They hold the mystical theories of ministry rather loosely and vaguely, and they talk little of the authority of the Assembly. ”

“ But if the Open Brethren have excommunicated persons whose errors might have been more charitably and more hopefully dealt with from within, they have had the excuse that they were always under the malevolent scrutiny of their Exclusive rivals. ”

“ We are bound to give such men the fullest credit for conscientiously holding that all worship except that of the Brethren is positively unlawful; but it is clear that their unenlightened zeal is often a very serious barrier to the union of Christian hearts, and a great impediment to the furtherance of the gospel! ”

“ Imagine a world-wide division ruthlessly precipitated in order that such shreds of this fragment of a system as might be recoverable after the convulsion should be protected against the doctrines that the saints of old had eternal life, and that the 7th of Romans describes Christian experience!
“Playing at churches,” was the sarcastic comment of a veteran Brother upon the Ryde-Ramsgate disruption. ”

“ Open Brethrenism may be best regarded as a kind of incomplete Darbyism. Darby is the prophet of the whole movement in all its ramifications. Newton, for example, represented elements that existed in some strength in primitive Brethrenism, until they were crushed out by Darby; but Newton separated wholly from both sections, and constantly directed the fire of his polemics against the views that they held in common. Both parties alike were heretical in Newton’s eyes, mainly on three points. They denied that the Church would go through the Great Tribulation ”

“ They need the support They confront an influential party that advocates a line of action by which, in many a town and village, the Church of Christ is seriously weakened. Some young fellows entirely careless about religion of any kind are converted among the Methodists of a Yorkshire village, and begin zealously working in the Sunday School or Young Men’s Guild. They come under the influence of a Plymouth Brother elsewhere. At his instigation, they renounce all connexion with the worship and work of the Methodists, although there is no meeting of the Brethren in their village. ”

“ Kelly passed an unfavourable judgment on Mr. Stuart’s doctrines, but held it entirely unwarrantable (as any man in his senses, whatever his dogmatic standpoint, must needs have done) to treat them as offences calling for excommunication. Mr. Kelly’s judgment of the teaching carries far more weight than that of all the Park Street divines taken together, but it must not be allowed too much authority as against Mr. Stuart; for Mr. Stuart scarcely claimed to be other than an innovator, and Mr. Kelly had always been the supreme exponent of the older Darbyite theology. ”

“ He is preeminently the apostle of the inner light. Virtually, though not explicitly, Darbyism had always postulated a sort of inspiration of the “Assembly” in its decrees, and of the individual in his ministry. Mr. Raven, as quoted by such a competent and wary antagonist as Mr. Grant, appears a true successor of the Montanists or of the Wittemberg prophets. Positive truth, according to his scheme, seems to be derived from the inward illumination of the spiritual man. The Bible indeed has a regulative office, and can exercise, I presume, a sort of veto upon an alleged revelation of a prophet. ”

“ With reference to “discipline,” they observe that it “should be restorative in its character; and the solemn act of separation should be resorted to only after loving and faithful dealing has failed to reclaim”. The honoured name of John Code appears at the head of the signatures.
It would be unsafe to infer that the Open Brethren are a more moderate and conciliatory kind of Darbyites. The truth is that heterogeneity is a leading feature of the Open party. ”

“ We read elsewhere (p. 241) , “Eternal life is realised only in the Assembly; no one touches eternal life now except in that connexion”.
Probably the long habit of considering themselves the sole depositories of everything beyond the most elementary principles of Christianity had tempted the Brethren to seek to enlarge their peculiar province ”

“ Some of them contentedly take their place, on terms of a friendly equality, with evangelical Christians of every name. Others, unhappily, are to the full as narrow and intolerant as the Exclusives at their worst. This party is strongest in the North and in Scotland, but it has a good deal of weight even in London.
The moderate section comprises some who consider open ministry preferable, but not obligatory ”

“ In this respect they have broken loose from the lead of the more powerful branch of their school, to place themselves side by side with the most zealous of other denominations in the great work of the Church. ”

“ Possessing no popular gifts himself, he had gathered an esoteric school in whose eyes he stood entirely alone. Amongst these ardent disciples, he systematically depreciated aggressive evangelistic effort. The eccentricity of his exegesis may be measured by a single instance. He said that he had no doubt that Demas forsook St. Paul in order to go on a mission tour, and that it was on this conduct that the apostolic censure was based. ”

“ Mr. Greenman, a transatlantic Brother, considers Mr. Raven’s doctrines “the direct outcome of Mr. J. B. Stoney’s ‘higher life,’ or ‘the Brethren’s Perfectionism’”. He adds that “with Mr. Darby’s and other solid teaching off the scene, Mr. R. carries all before him”. The following passage [6] illustrates the point:—
“When a Christian has done with the responsible side of his course down here, it is the end of priesthood ”

“ Kelly’s followers enjoyed a comparative tranquillity. There were indeed some important defections to the Open Brethren, and elsewhere; but for nearly twenty years there was no disruption, nor any new doctrinal vagaries of consequence. This immunity was doubtless due to the happy survival of the great chief of the party. In Darby and Darbyism I made the following observations on Mr. Kelly’s position: “At the age of eighty, he stands before us as the only survivor of a remarkable school ”

“ Until they can form one, they must walk over to the nearest town in which one is found. If they are unable to do this, they must stay at home. If is the greatest mistake to suppose that the Brother who enjoins such a course is necessarily an Exclusive ”

“ Darby, Kelly, Stoney, Stuart, Cecil, Grant, Raven, Lowe. ↑ I quote a single instance: “A man who born for the universe narrowed his mind by Darbyism” (Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries, p. 164) . The severity of the implied criticism on the school enhances the high value of the compliment to the man. ↑ It must be remembered that Newton and Tregelles were never in any sense Open Brethren. ”