church of a town, though it may be presumed that in the case of large towns the church must have been constituted by several local congregations. Now, though Darby was never tired of preaching that the Church was in ruins, and that God would not sanction any effort to restore its primitive administration, he none the less proceeded boldly to deduce that no local “gathering” in London could take any ecclesiastical steps without the concurrence of all the rest. In pursuance of this theory a room was hired in Central London for Saturday evening conferences, at which were settled all the ecclesiastical acts of London meetings for the next day—such as the reception of candidates, or sentences of excommunication against evil livers and people who communicated with Open Brethren.
At a later period, delegates attended from all the local centres, but it would seem that at first (and the germ of the institution may be traced to a period anterior to the disruption) it had a less representative character. A paper was sent out to all the metropolitan meetings, embodying the decrees of this central authority. The number of meetings in London, and perhaps the mere metropolitan prestige of the city, made these decrees supreme in England, and consequently in the whole world of Brethrenism. How tremendous an instrument of ecclesiastical tyranny such an institution could be was not fully proved until the convulsions that issued in the dissolution of Darbyism in 1881; but even twenty years earlier things were bad enough.
It is hard to speak with any respect of Darby’s action in attempting to base the claims of the Central Meeting on Scriptural precedent. His argument literally furnished not even the barest presumption that such a link, connecting the various assemblies within one municipality,
