The Plymouth Brethren/The Rise
The Rise of “the Brethren” is almost, though happily not quite, lost in obscurity. Somewhere between 1828 and 1830 a number of good and devout men became very much dissatisfied with the existing state of things in the Church. Schism was dominant, and lifelessness was almost the normal condition of professing Christians.
The few who were pining after a higher life, and after a brighter manifestation of the power of the Spirit in their practical walk, belonged to no particular denomination, but were scattered through all. They yearned after a closer union, for they saw that the Lord Himself had prayed that His followers “might be one;” but existing ecclesiastical organisations were, as they thought, barriers in the way of this unity. At this time Mr. A. N. Groves, of Exeter, who had been wonderfully taught of the Spirit to renounce all things for the service of Christ, was at Dublin University preparing for “orders” in the Establishment. While in residence, as we gather from his memoirs, “he became acquainted with many sincere Christians, chiefly members of the Establishment, who with him desired to see more devotedness to Christ, and union amongst the people of God. To promote these objects, they met continually for prayer and reading the Word.” One day, Mr. Bellet―afterwards a prominent “Brother”―said to a lady, “Groves has just been telling me that it appeared to him from Scripture that believers, meeting together as disciples of Christ, were free to break bread together, as their Lord had admonished them, and that, in as far as the Apostles could be a guide, every Lord’s day should be set apart for thus remembering the Lord’s death and obeying His parting command… This suggestion of Mr. Groves’ was immediately carried out by himself and his friends in Dublin… This was the beginning of what has been erroneously termed Plymouth Brethrenism.”[1] There was not the slightest intention, at the outset, of passing condemnation on either the Establishment or the churches outside the Establishment. They carefully abstained from such a question, confining themselves to their right to meet on the foundation of a common faith in a common Saviour. Many of their number, indeed, were clergymen, and all continued to meet for worship at times with those bodies of Christians with whom they were associated, and claimed the right to meet with all. Mr. Groves, for example, distinctly asserts this principle. In 1829 he left England for Persia, in the bonds of the Gospel, and returning, for a time, in 1836, he found, to his sorrow, that the foundation on which “the Brethren” had met before his departure had been subverted during his absence. So keenly did he feel this, that he wrote a letter of remonstrance to Mr. Darby, in which he assures him that he is no way estranged from him, “though,” he goes on to say, “I feel you have departed from those principles by which you once hoped to have effected them (his purposes), and are in principle returning to the city from whence you departed. Still, my soul so reposes in the truth of your heart to God that I feel it needs but a step or two more to advance, and you will see all the evils of the systems from which you profess to be separated, to spring up among yourselves… I ever understood our principle of communion to be the possession of the common life or common blood of the family of God (for the life is in the blood); these were our early thoughts, and are my most matured ones. The transition your little bodies have undergone, in no longer standing forth the witnesses for the glorious and simple truth, so much as standing forth witnesses against all that they judge error, have lowered them in my apprehension from heaven to earth in their position of witnesses.”
He also vindicates his right of worshipping with all Christians. “We were free,” he says, “within the limits of the truth, to share with them in part, though we could not in all their services; in fact, as we received them for the life, we could not reject them for their systems.” He makes the personal application: “Some will not have me hold communion with the Scots, because their views are not satisfactory about the Lord’s Supper; others with you, because of your views about baptism; others with the Church of England, because of her thoughts about ministry. On my principles I receive them all; but on the principle of witnessing against evil I should reject them all.”[2]
Such were the principles of the Brethren at the beginning. Soon after the meeting at Dublin, which had its origin in 1828 or 1829, one was commenced also in Plymouth―the meeting which has given its name to all the rest, and may be regarded as the parent of most of the forms of Brethrenism that now exist.
My authority for this statement, as far as the date is concerned, is Dr. Tregelles. He says:―
“I know something of the early days of the Brethren in this and in other places. I believe that I have a general acquaintance with the facts connected with those who have assembled for communion at Plymouth. I was associated with the Christians meeting here, when they were about eighty in number, in the early part of 1835. From those who were then united in fellowship I received much information as to what had taken place during the four previous years.”
He then gives the principle, as stated above, of their meeting.
“Those Brethren who assembled in Plymouth for communion, in 1831, had the thought prominently before them, that the Word of God gave them the liberty of meeting in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for fellowship, in obedience to His word, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’”
—Three Letters, etc., p. 4.
In this simple way “the Brethren” sprang into existence. There are two names connected with the movement that cannot be omitted―Mr. J. N. Darby and Mr. B. W. Newton. Mr. Darby was, we believe, a clergyman, and Mr. Newton was a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. They were both diligent students of the Bible, and being both singularly gifted as expositors or teachers, and taught to regard themselves as responsible to the Lord for the exercise of their gifts, they devoted themselves to the ministry of the Word among “the Brethren.” Mr. Darby seems to have been peripatetic in his labours, though at the outset he was more constantly at Dublin; while Mr. Newton is found, soon after the commencement of the meeting, resident at Plymouth. Both obtained great influence with “the Brethren,” and were, not unnaturally, consciously or unconsciously, looked up to as leaders, as well as teachers. Other prominent names are often found associated with Plymouth, such as Mr. Wigram, Mr. Harris, Mr. Soltau, &c.; but, it must be remembered that all the teachers circulated more or less through the various meetings that were gradually established, and thus are found sometimes in one place and sometimes in another.
We must guard ourselves from supposing that this meeting in Plymouth was conducted after the present type of such gatherings. As we have explained, the foundation of their gathering was their common faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They met, “to break bread,” and certain brethren, acknowledged to be teachers (not any who chose to do so) ministered one or more, as the case might be―in word and doctrine. In addition to this there was one presiding elder, Mr. B. W. Newton, who took the oversight of the ministry and was expected to hinder that which was unprofitable and unedifying.[3] This office Mr. Newton seems to have held for three or four years; and Dr. Tregelles informs us that he saw a letter from Mr. Darby to Mr. Newton, which was addressed B. Newton, Esq., Elder of the Saints, meeting in Raleigh street, Plymouth.
From these statements you will be able to form a tolerable conception of the rise of “the Brethren,” and the mode of their original meetings.