tion,—“I am satisfied that any Christian of the sundry parties around us, except the close Baptists, could say, with a bold and free spirit, I meet with my fellow Christians in the name of the Lord Jesus simply”.
The central point in the system of the Brethren, and that which emboldens them to put in such exclusive claims, is liberty of ministry,—or perhaps I ought rather to say, the association of liberty of ministry with the observance of the Lord’s Supper. The want of this as a settled practice disqualifies all other communities. This is the real differentia. Some of the Brethren would wish no doubt to go deeper. They would say that they alone claim a true Church basis, as meeting in Christ’s name; and that other denominations are self-excluded by owning their several denominational titles. But this is utterly futile, not only because it is intrinsically absurd,[1] but also because in exceptional cases of isolated evangelical communities, less encumbered with denominational designations than the Brethren themselves, all recognition is equally withheld if liberty of ministry be lacking.
Darby treated open ministry as an inference (vital indeed in its importance) from the deeper principles underlying a right conception of the Church; but, as we have already[2] partly seen, he never reached any intelli-
- ↑ I would not wantonly use a harsh expression; but can anything milder be said of a statement that Baptists, for example, assemble for worship in the name of Baptism, or perhaps of Baptistism? The Wesleyans are naturally a more favoured example in the polemics of Brethrenism, and it is assumed as a truism that they assemble in the name of Wesley; but can the Brethren imagine that if they asked any Wesleyan assembly in what name it had assembled, there could be any but one spontaneous, consentient reply, “In the name of Jesus Christ”?
- ↑ Chap, v., p. 91.
