Christian Brethren:

 

A Brief Tracing of the Movements through Dublin, Plymouth, Bristol

and Barnstaple in the Early Nineteenth Century

 

Introduction

 

BRETHREN (Plymouth) – In the 2nd quarter of the 19th century the State Churches in Great Britain were worldly and dead; the Dissenters were orthodox and cold; the great Evangelical Revival was on the wane . . . . It was in the midst of this state of things that the movement of Brethrenism originated.(1827).[1]

 

 

            During the early nineteenth century several significant movements streamed through the history of the modern church re-charting a course that continues in sometimes greater but sadly more often lesser degrees to this present hour.   “The great world-wide missionary movement is one of these.  The Bible societies may be looked at collectively as another.  And what is sometimes called “Brethrenism” is a third . . .”[2] Some modern church historians, however, have characterized the Brethren as “an infamous and consistently misunderstood evangelical secessionist movement.”[3]  To many the Brethren are viewed as a product of a new brand of eschatology attributed to John Nelson Darby.[4]  With this perspective, William B. Neatby argued that “strictly fundamental Brethrenism is the child of unfulfilled prophecy, and of the expectancy of the immediate return of the Savior.”[5]  The continuing influence of dispensationalism upon the present culture within evangelicalism, whether a net positive or not, is demonstrated by the popularity of Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series.  To still others, though, the more significant contribution of Brethrenism to the church was their ecclesiology arising from primitivist piety that led them not only to secede from the Established church but also to reject identification with Dissenting chapels.[6]

            While both positions on the origin and impact of Brethrenism have their ardent advocates, this brief overview adheres to the thesis recently so well advanced by James Patrick Callahan in his scholarly work, Primitivist Piety: The Ecclesiology of the Early Plymouth Brethren, where he states:

The Brethren’s commitment to primitive Christianity, within the framework of a literal reading of the New Testament, was the basis for their emphasis upon eschatology – not the other way around . . . . [Their] appeal to the primitive church was meant to stand in marked contrast to appeals to authority based upon succession or tradition. They viewed the principles of soteriological unity, divine initiative in reviving interest in ecclesial matters, following the simplicity of apostolic Christianity, and the spiritual nature of authority for ministry as the means to actually being biblical Christians. The applications of the apostolic norm to all ecclesial questions was viewed as the only sound and authoritative basis for the contemporary church.[7] 

 

The movement, or more accurately movements, of the early Brethren will first be traced from the general climate of dissatisfaction with the church that characterized the coming of the nineteenth century in Britain.  Then this account will focus upon the emergence of small gatherings in Dublin, Ireland and Plymouth, England that later developed into the Exclusive Brethren and those in Bristol and Barnstaple, among others, that subsequently became known as Open Brethren.   Finally, a few humble suggestions will be offered regarding the legacy of the early Brethren to those who aspire to a similar primitivist piety in the present-day church.

Dissatisfaction within the Early 19th Century Church in Britain

            In the early 1800’s, a general sense of dissatisfaction with the dry and lifeless condition of the institutional church manifested itself through a calling for a return to biblical Christianity.  Among the groups sounding this call were the “Baptists, Primitive Methodists, Quakers, Disciples of Christ, the Catholic Apostolic Church, the Oxford Movement and the Plymouth Brethren.”[8]  Horton Davies described these “new forms of primitivism” as further evidence of a similar line of reform that has been present, in greater and lesser degrees, throughout the history of the church.  He states:

Ever since the Reformation (and, indeed, before it) reformers large and small have turned to the Bible in general and to the New Testament in particular, on the presumption that the earliest was the purest form of the church, and have attempted to revive its radiant faith . . . . The revolt of the charismatic against the institutional is a phenomenon frequently found in the history of Christianity in the nineteenth century . . . . The Bible was the textbook of revolution.[9]

 

In contrast to Davies’ assessment, Edmund Broadbent had earlier advanced the notion that the Brethren alone were a distinct outgrowth of a “succession of revivals of evangelical devotion and dissent,” without acknowledging “affinities between the Brethren and their immediate ecclesial climate.”[10]    Subsequent historians of the church have soundly criticized Broadbent’s theory,[11] and Davies appears to offer the more accurate interpretation.  Davies further sets forth several characteristics common to these early nineteenth century primitivist movements.  They are:

Biblicism, in their efforts to revive apostolic church life; a charismatic appeal to authority as the basis for ministry; the motivation to reform ecclesial life based upon the revived belief in the impending second coming of Christ; an ecumenical emphasis and efforts to accomplish the reunion of Christians; a renewed appreciation of weekly communion as central to their corporate identity, but also a depreciation of the sacramental nature of communion.[12]

 

While even within these common characteristics, eschatology is viewed as a motivating factor; the predominant impetus for the emerging reform efforts seems to have been a desire to re-ignite the fires of the first century church.  “Primitivist convictions in various dissenting movements were routine—their dissatisfaction with contemporary Christianity, their vocabulary, and their appeal to authority in ecclesial practices were part of a pervasive primitivist convention in early nineteenth century Britain.”[13]

Dublin and Plymouth – The Emergence of Exclusive Brethren

              One significant consequence of the early growth of various primitivist movements in the early nineteenth century was their resulting contribution to what was already a divided church.  The dissenters that had arisen in the previous generations showed little possibility of coming together.  Yet, in the midst of this general condition of spiritual lifeless-ness and increasing tendencies toward division, “we find spontaneously up and down England and Ireland . . . men stretching out their hands over denominational barriers and beginning to meet in common worship.”[14]   These “spontaneous meetings” mark the beginning of the Brethren movement.

            A number of the first “loosely related meetings” occurred in Dublin in 1826.[15]  Edward Cronin, a former Roman Catholic, had come there for health reasons and initially joined in with the dissenting churches.  The dissenting churches, however, required commitment to special membership in a single church.  Cronin was opposed to such a requirement stating that “the Church of God was one, and that [since] all that believed were members of that one Body, I firmly refused special membership.”[16]  Just how and why Cronin had come to believe and act upon this principle is not readily evident, but several others shared his convictions and were soon meeting together “to break bread and pray.”[17]

            A few years earlier, Anthony Norris Groves had given up a promising career in the dental profession in order to devote himself to missionary service.  In 1825, he published a booklet entitled Christian Devotedness that embodied his convictions regarding personal piety and service.[18]  Then in 1826, Groves traveled to Dublin for the purpose of entering Trinity College to prepare for ordination and service as a missionary.[19]  He first attended evangelical meetings for Bible reading and prayer.  Groves displayed both a staunch attitude toward the Establishment church and an equally stern rejection of dissenting meetings.[20]   He soon suggested to John G. Bellett, who he had met in Dublin, that they begin to gather together for communion, without regard for Established or dissenting meetings.[21] 

            About the same time as Cronin and Groves began their respective small group gatherings for common worship, Bellett also met John Nelson Darby.  A curate within the Established church, Darby had become embroiled in a controversy with the Archbishop of Dublin over Erastianism.[22]  He continued for a time in his County Wicklow parish, but Darby also began to travel occasionally to preach sermons or speak at meetings of various religious societies.  When he came to Dublin, he joined in with Bellett, Cronin and others in what would be known as the Fitzwilliam Square meeting.[23]  Another early participant in the Fitzwilliam Square meeting, John Parnell, maintained that they “did not intend their meetings to sectarian in deportment, but only a means to honor their conviction regarding soteriological unity.”[24] He stated, “To set up a new Church, a denomination or sect, was not only far from their purpose, but was jealously watched against.”[25]

            Darby soon became a leading influence in Dublin, and his influence extended to a group of fellow former Established churchmen around Oxford who had seceded from the church and began meetings in Plymouth in the late 1820’s and early 1830’s.   In slight contrast with those in Dublin, the Plymouth group appears to have been drawn together by not only a common appeal to soteriological unity but also an interest in prophecy.[26]  By this time, Darby had begun to articulate his ideas on unfulfilled prophecy through which he was introduced to the Plymouth meetings.  Darby was very encouraged by what he experienced there and later wrote, “Plymouth has altered the face of Christianity to me.”[27]

            The meeting at Plymouth continued to grow throughout the 1830’s as it became the center of the movement.  Indeed, many refer to this movement as “Plymouth Brethren” even though historically its roots trace first from Dublin.  Darby’s influence as a teacher and leader also grew not only within the Brethren movement but also more generally through the concurrent spread of prophecy conferences at which he frequently spoke.  One recent summary of Darby’s teaching sets forth the following elements:

First, Darby made a clear distinction between Israel and the church.  He held that the promises to Israel were unconditional and irrevocable and, thus, must be literally accomplished.

Second, the church exists in a parenthesis in time between the Old Testament Jews and the fulfillment of the promise prophesied to them.

Third, each period of time, or dispensation, began with God’s creatures in a favorable position but by infidelity they fell away from Him.

Fourth, in all dispensations a remnant or residue, a nucleus of believers who are not contaminated, separate themselves from the practice of others and remain true to God.

Finally, God never restores a fallen situation but always removes it and makes something new—He begins a new dispensation.[28]

 

Darby’s ecclesiology had now become linked with his eschatology.  This was not, however, characteristic of the ideas that had initially prompted the “spontaneous meetings” in the infancy of the movement.  Rather, the Brethren’s ecclesiology came first, then Darby’s eschatology.  H. A. Ironside contends, “It is a mistake to suppose . . . that the Brethren movement was founded upon a particular view of prophecy.”[29]  Ironside then proceeds to paint one of the most vivid pictures of the early Brethren in these words:

What particularly marked them from the beginning was their belief that there was no Biblical warrant for the idea that the Lord’s Supper was ever intended to be the badge or exclusive possession of a sect or party; that no ordained clergyman needed to preside in order to render the remembrance of Christ in this way valid, but that any two or three gathered together in the name of Jesus, whether for prayer, worship, or to take the feast of love, were guaranteed His presence in the midst.  They did not see in Scripture any evidence of a clerical system in the early church at all, but recognized that the Word taught the priesthood of all true believers having access into the holiest by the blood of Christ.  Acting upon this, after much exercise and in fear and trembling at first, they began the breaking of bread on the ground of membership in the body of Christ alone.[30]

 

            Opposition to Darby’s views on the church, which formed the basis for the Exclusive Brethren, later led in 1848 to a formal separation by Brethren in other communities from the dominance of the Plymouth meeting.  In a letter written more than 10 years before this event, Anthony Norris Groves had warned Darby of the tendencies of his teaching toward exclusivity.  “Your government will become—unseen, perhaps, and unexpressed, yet one wherein overwhelmingly is felt the authority of men; you will be known more by what you witness against, than what you witness for, and practically will prove that you witness against all but yourselves.”[31]  Groves then proceeds to describe his view of the movement’s formative ideas, by stating,  “I ever understood our principle of communion to be the possession of the common life, or common blood of the family of God; these were our early thoughts, and they are my most matured ones.”[32]   In his concluding rebuke of Darby, Groves insightfully observed,

The transition your little bodies [i.e. local church meetings] 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, has lowered them in my apprehension from heaven to earth, in their position as witnesses . . . . The position which this occupying the seat of judgment places them in, will be this: the most narrow-minded and bigoted will rule, because his conscience cannot and will not give way, and therefore the more enlarged heart will yield.  It is into this position, dear Darby, I feel some little flocks are fast tending, if they have not already attained it, making light, not life, the measure of communion.[33]

 

            Within two years of Groves’ letter to Darby, an administrative “central meeting” was convened to which the fellowship of Brethren assemblies were to be subject.  An 1846 letter excommunicating B.W. Newton, formerly a close colleague of Darby, from the Plymouth meeting precipitated the subsequent separation in 1848 by the Brethren in Bristol.  All those who followed Darby “stood for the circle of fellowship or unity of assemblies ecclesiology” and became known as “Exclusive Brethren”.[34]  “Those with Műller, Groves and Craik [leaders at Bristol] just as tenaciously stood for the autonomy of each local church” and became known as “Open Brethren.”[35]

Bristol and Barnstaple – The Emergence of Open Brethren

            While the designation “Open Brethren” did not arise until after the 1848 separation, the essence of this aspect of the Brethren movement derives out of the lives and ministries of three of its early leaders: George Műller, Henry Craik and R.C. Chapman.  Műller and Craik were among the leaders of the Brethren in Bristol, and Chapman was a leader of the movement in Barnstaple.[36]  The fact that these three emerged as principal leaders of the Open Brethren is likely due to the influence of Anthony Norris Groves, the author of the above-noted “prophetic letter” to Darby.

                Craik served as a tutor to the Groves family during the late 1820’s prior to Groves’ departure to India on his first missionary trip.[37]  At that time, Craik was a student at Trinity College preparing for ordination in the Established church.   The impact that Groves had upon him is foreshadowed in an early journal entry written by Craik during his first days of service as a tutor.  “He is a most interesting, a most noble character.  The chief features of his mind are generosity, heavenly-mindedness, great talent, persuasive eloquence, gentleness, humility [and] learning.”[38]  Shortly after Groves left for Baghdad and likely as a result of both his personal study and the long conversations he had had with Groves, Craik “renounced the principle of an Established church” and began to pastor a Baptist chapel in 1831.[39]

            During this formative period in his life, Craik also met Műller, who had left his preparations for ministry in the Lutheran Church in order to pursue training for missionary service.[40]  From Craik and others, Műller learned about Groves and the success of his independent missionary venture.  This inspired Műller all the more, and in 1830, Műller also became a Baptist pastor at Ebenezer Chapel in the community where he and Craik had met the year before.[41] That same year, Műller married the sister of Groves and was later invited, along with his now good friend Craik, to assist Groves with his missionary endeavors in Baghdad.  They both declined the invitation because they had only recently begun a successful ministry together in Bristol, first at Gideon Chapel and then also at Bethesda Chapel.[42]

            Craik had initially come to Bristol at the invitation of R. C. Chapman who was then an evangelical member in the Church of England.[43]  Műller and his newlywed wife soon moved to Bristol and joined in the ministry.    Although the Bristol community viewed Műller and Craik as dissenting ministers during these early years, Darby visited with them in 1832 and found the pattern of their meetings to be in agreement with the Brethren in Dublin and Plymouth.  The commencement of the meeting’s practices in Bristol, especially the emphasis upon the weekly breaking of bread (i.e. Lord’s Supper) and their open platform allowing others to instruct publicly from the Scriptures, even preceded the formal gatherings of the Brethren in Plymouth.[44]  So began what would be a short-lived association between Műller and Craik and the meetings over which Darby served as an influential leader.

            In the meantime, Chapman left the Established church and became the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in nearby Barnstaple.[45]  While Chapman began to adopt the style of meetings in Bristol where Műller and Craik were ministering, other dissenting churchmen who were not Brethren also influenced him.  “He introduced open communion and a weekly Lord’s Supper—a communion meeting with an open format to allow the spiritually gifted to instruct publicly.”[46]  Chapman, however, developed a closer association with Műller and Craik, and together they offered their support to surrounding independent meetings so that the Brethren pattern of Bristol and Barnstaple was subsequently applied in various dissenting gatherings throughout their area of ministry.[47]

            The general tendency toward more openness that characterized the growth of Bristol and Barnstaple was later to form the basis for Műller, Craik and Chapman’s response to the exclusiveness practiced at Plymouth in 1848.  Once again, Grove’s influence upon Műller and Craik became evident.  Craik articulated the biblical basis for their response in his book, New Testament Church Order, in which he argued against exclusive position along three lines.  First, he maintained that no one church reflects all the biblical teachings.  Second, following upon Grove’s lead, he submitted that only Christ and “common life in him” is essential for church fellowship, and finally, he observed that all New Testament churches were not the same but developed progressively over time.[48] 

            A number of other differences between the Open and Exclusive Brethren should be noted.  First, neither Műller nor Craik were adherent’s to Darby’s dispensational eschatology.[49]  Second, the Open Brethren affirmed the continuation of church offices and so rejected Darby’s view of the “church in ruins.”[50]  Third, while the Open Brethren were primitivist attempting to return to the example of the early church, they “were not ‘patternists’ reading the New Testament as if it were a constitution or blueprint for the church at all times.”[51]  Finally, the Open Brethren practiced “believer’s baptism” in contrast to the Exclusives who allowed for both infant and adult baptism under their doctrine of “household baptism.”[52]         

The Legacy of Brethrenism

             Following the division between Open and Exclusive Brethren in the mid-nineteenth century, a multitude of factions developed along both strands of Brethrenism since neither adhered to conventions, formal associations or denominational structures.  The various Brethren groups did, however, publish a large number of periodicals and books as well as convene regular conferences, but their efforts at reconciliation among the factions proved largely unsuccessful.[53]  The subsequent course of the Exclusive Brethren has been recounted in numerous volumes, most notable of which are the works of H.A. Ironside and Napoleon Noel.[54]  Harold H. Rowdon and F. Roy Coad have written the definitive works on the Open Brethren.[55]  Two more recent treatments chart the progress of the Brethren movement into North America from the latter part of the nineteenth century to the present.[56]   Finally, the Brethren in Britain have attempted, within the past twenty-five years, to undertake a self-assessment and a re-charting of their course through the efforts of the Christian Brethren Research Fellowship and the Swanwick Conference.[57]

             Although the movement has been characterized by splits and divisions which continue to dissipate the ranks of its adherents to this day, the principal legacy of Brethrenism stems more from exemplary lives of its early leaders than from the divisive doctrines of any of the movement’s particular segments.  To be sure, one cannot speak of the Brethren without giving due regard to John Nelson Darby.  His dispensational eschatology has made a mark (albeit a dark one in the reckoning of even some who count themselves within the Brethren) upon a large portion of the church that would arise in the ranks of the later fundamentalist movement.  Yet, the greater impact upon the church as a whole has been made by Brethren known more for their enlarged faith and sacrificial devotion to the cause of world missions than for being Brethren. George Műller’s faith-based ministry to the orphans in Bristol has been both an inspiration and challenge to Christians everywhere, and the dedication and devotion of Anthony Norris Groves has likewise served to enliven a selfless willingness to respond to the call to missions whatever the cost.  The legacy of Brethren like Műller and Groves was passed along to their successors in the twentieth century who, like Jim Elliot in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador, carried it forward even in the face of death.  Such faith and devotion to the cause of Christ is the enduring legacy of the Brethren.

Conclusion

 

            Contrary to the conception of some church historians, the early Brethren movement was not initially the outgrowth of an emerging interest in unfulfilled prophecy and the development of Darby’s dispensationalism.  Rather, they were principally concerned with a return to piety within the church by taking seriously the Protestant stress on the authority of the Bible.  They exhibited what one of their own historians has characterized as “a radical commitment to Sola Scriptura”[58] It was the Brethren’s primitivist piety that fired their faith and devotion and so inspired a movement that continues to challenge the commitment of believers within the church today.

Works Cited

 

Alan Bamford, ed., Where Do We Go From Here? H. E. Walter, Ltd., 1979

 

Robert Baylis, My People: The History of those Christians Sometimes Called Plymouth

Brethren, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1995

 

E. H. Broadbent, The Pilgrim Church, Pickering & Inglis Ltd., 1931

 

Graham Brown & Brian Mills, “The Brethren” Today: A Factual Survey, Paternoster

Press, 1980

 

James Patrick Callahan, Primitivist Piety: The Ecclesiology of the Early Plymouth

Brethren, Scarecrow Press, 1996

 

F. Roy Coad, A History of the Brethren Movement, Paternoster Press, 1968

 

H. L. Ellison, The Household Church, Paternoster Press, 1979

 

H. A. Ironside, A Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement, Zondervan Publishing

House, 1942

 

Ross Howlett McLaren, The Triple Tradition:  The Origin and Development of the Open

Brethren in North America, The Emmaus Journal, vols. 4-6, 1995-97

 

Hy. Pickering, ed., Chief Men Among the Brethren, Pickering & Inglis, Ltd., 1931

 

Harold H. Rowdon, The Origins of the Brethren, Pickering & Inglis, Ltd., 1967

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


[1] Article by John McCulloch, “BRETHREN, Plymouth” Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1909), 2:843 (quoted in James Patrick Callahan, Primitivist Piety: The Ecclesiology of the Early Plymouth Brethren, Scarecrow Press, 1996, p. 71).

[2] H. A. Ironside, A Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement, Zondervan Publishing

House, 1942, p. 9.

[3] James Patrick Callahan, Primitivist Piety: The Ecclesiology of the Early Plymouth

Brethren, Scarecrow Press, 1996, p. ix.

[4] Callahan, p. 26.

[5] Callahan, p. 26 (quoting Neatby, History of the Plymouth Brethren, 2d ed. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1902,  p.339).

[6] Callahan, p. 27, 32.

 

[8] Callahan, p.67

[9] Horton Davies, Worship and Theology in England, vol. 4, From Newman to Martineau, 1850-1900 (Princeton Univ. Press, 1962), p. 140-43 (quoted in Callahan, p. 68, n. 16).

[10] Callahan, p.23-24; Edmund H. Broadbent, The Pilgrim Church: Being Some Account of the Continuance through Succeeding Centuries of Churches Practicing the Principles Taught and Exemplified in the New Testament, London: Pickering & Inglis Ltd., 1931

[11] See John H. Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel (Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 133, 209 (cited in Callahan, p. 24, n. 81).

[12] Callahan, p. 68.

[13] Callahan, pp. 70-71.

[14] H. L. Ellison, The Household Church, Paternoster Press, 1979, p. 15.

[15] Harold H. Rowdon, The Origins of the Brethren, Pickering & Inglis, Ltd., 1967, p. 37; Callahan, p. 1.

[16] Interesting Reminiscences of the Early History of the “Brethren:” With a Letter from J.G. Bellett to J.N. Darby (London: Alfred Holmes, n.d.), pp15-16 (Quoted in Callahan, p. 2).

[17] Rowdon, p. 37-38.

[18] F. Roy Coad, A History of the Brethren Movement, Paternoster Press, 1968, p. 16-17.

[19] Coad, p. 18.

[20] Callahan, p. 2.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Callahan, p. 3.

[23] Callahan, pp. 4-5.

[24] Ibid.

[25] William Collingwood, The Brethren: A Historical Sketch, Pickering & Inglis, 1899, p.

8. (Quoted in Callahan, p. 5).

[26] Callahan, pp. 6-7.

[27] John Nelson Darby, Letters of J.N.D., Bible Truth Publisher, 1971, vol. 3, p. 271 (Quoted in Callahan, p.9).

[28] Ross Howlett McLaren, The Triple Tradition:  The Origin and Development of the Open

Brethren in North America, The Emmaus Journal, 1995, vol. 4, p. 181.

[29] H. A. Ironside, A Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement, Zondervan Publishing House, 1942, p. 16.

[30] Ibid. pp. 16-17.

[31] A.N. Groves’ letter in A. B. Miller, What is God’s Path for His People? A Review of the Origin, Progress, and Development of What is Known as ‘The Plymouth Brethren’ with an Examination of Modern Teachings as to the Church (Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, n.d.), pp. 15-16 (Quoted in McLaren, vol. 4, p. 191).

[32] McLaren, vol. 4, p. 191.

[33] Ibid. pp. 191-92.

[34] Ibid. p. 192.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Callahan, pp. 10-12.

[37] Rowdon, p. 112.

[38] Ibid. (Citing Craik’s Diary and Letters, pp. 80-81).

[39] Callahan, p. 10.

[40] Rowdon, p. 114.

[41] Callahan, p. 10.

[42] Coad, pp. 43-44

[43] Rowdon, p. 119.

[44] Callahan, p. 11.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Coad, pp. 72-80; Rowdon, pp. 147-53.

[48] Henry Craik, New Testament Church Order: Five Lectures (Bristol; W. Mack, 1863) (cited in McLaren, vol. 4, p. 188).

[49] McLaren, vol. 4, p. 188.

[50] Ibid. p. 189.

[51] Ibid.  See also Coad, pp. 154ff, 250, 256, 258.

[52] Ibid. p. 193.

[53] Ironside, pp. 145-156.

[54] See H. A. Ironside, A Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement, Zondervan Publishing

House, 1942; Napoleon Noel, The History of the Brethren, 2 vols. W.F. Knapp, 1936.

[55] See Harold H. Rowdon, The Origins of the Brethren, Pickering & Inglis, Ltd., 1967; F. Roy Coad, A History of the Brethren Movement, Paternoster Press, 1968.

[56] Robert Baylis, My People: The History of those Christians Sometimes Called Plymouth

Brethren, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1995; Ross Howlett McLaren, The Triple Tradition: The Origin and Development of the Open Brethren in North America, The Emmaus Journal, vols. 4-6, 1995-97.

[57] See Alan Bamford, ed., Where Do We Go From Here? The Future of the Brethren: Report of the Addresses and Discussions at the Swanwick Conference of Brethren, September 1978, H. E. Walter, Ltd., 1979; Graham Brown & Brian Mills, “The Brethren” Today: A Factual Survey, Paternoster Press, 1980.

[58] Harold H. Rowdon, “The Brethren Concept of Sainthood,” Vox Evangelica 20 (1990): 101 (quoted in Callahan, p. 21).