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.[1] 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.
Their Divisions.—If we now trace their divisions, we shall see how they gradually modified or expanded their first principles, and how it is that their meetings have assumed their present form. With some few slight disputes and controversies, “the Brethren” continued to meet without much alteration, until the year 1845—when the first open division or disruption occurred.
Its cause was the same as that which has operated in every age of the Church—in every schism and dissension which have rent into a thousand fragments its visible unity—viz., divergence of opinion, or diversity of doctrine. Mr. Darby and Mr. Newton occu-
- ↑ See Three Letters, by Dr. Tregelles, p. 5.
