it is that candidates for membership are proposed and received. Here it is that members are put away and received back. Here it is that accusations are made and tried. … The mischief that results to the Church from this Conference it is impossible, as I feel, to calculate. … It is evident that this Conference is, in fact, an ‘Inquisition.’ … On a recent occasion its doors were guarded and locked, and a cruel assault was committed upon a Brother on his entering. … It is, I find, the subject of general enmity and condemnation by the saints, who, I believe, long for deliverance from its power.”[1]
The Doctrines of the Brethren must, in the next place, occupy our attention. Some of these have necessarily been touched upon in reviewing their practice; but we proceed now to explain what may be termed their theological dogmas.
(1.) The secret advent of the Lord. The holders of the pre-millennial coming of Christ have, for the most part, been divided into two classes. The one have maintained that the Saviour will return for the destruction of Antichrist and for the salvation of His people, at the same time, in manifested glory; the other, that there is a secret coming of Christ for His people before even Antichrist has appeared on the earth, and that He comes manifestly with His people when He destroys the Man of Sin with the breath of His lips. The Brethren maintain this latter view, although no direct passages of Scripture can be adduced in its support. On the other hand, there are many that seem to render it utterly untenable. For we read of some who, during the reign of Antichrist, “were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and the Word of God.” These, however, we are told, are not Christians, not members of the body of Christ, but Jews converted after the rapture of the saints.
