Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Plymouth Brethren
PLYMOUTH BRETHREN (Brethren, or Christian Brethren) are a sect of Christians who received the name in 1830 when the Rev. J. N. Darby induced many of the inhabitants of Plymouth to associate themselves with him for the promulgation of opinions which they held in common. Although small Christian communities existed in Ireland and elsewhere calling themselves Brethren and holding similar views, the accession to the ranks of Mr Darby so increased their numbers and influence that he is usually reckoned the founder of Plymouthism. Darby (born in Nov. 1800, in London; graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1819; died April 29, 1882 at Bournemouth) was a curate in the Episcopalian Church of Ireland until 1827, when he felt himself constrained to leave the Established Church; betaking himself to Dublin, he became associated with several devout people who refused all ecclesiastical fellowship, met statedly for public worship, and called themselves the Brethren. In 1830 Darby at Plymouth won over a large number of people to his way of thinking, among whom were the Rev. Benjamin Wills Newton, who had been a clergyman of the Established Church of England; the Rev. James L. Harris, a Plymouth clergyman; and the well known Biblical scholar Dr Samuel Prideaux Tregelles. The Brethren started a newspaper, The Christian Witness, continued under the names The Present Testimony (1849) and The Bible Treasury (1856), with Harris as editor and Darby as the most important contributor. During the next eight years the progress of the sect was rapid, and communities of the brethren were to be found in many of the principal towns in England.
In 1838 Darby, after a short stay in Paris, went to reside in French Switzerland, and found many disciples. Congregations were formed in Geneva, at Lausanne, where most of the Methodist and other dissenters joined the Brethren, at Vevey, and elsewhere in Vaud. His opinions also found their way into Germany, German Switzerland, Italy, and France; but French Switzerland has always remained the stronghold of Plymouthism on the Continent, and for his followers there Mr Darby wrote two of his most important tracts, Le Ministère considéré dans sa Nature and De la Présence et de l’Action du S. Esprit dans l’Église. The revolution in the canton Vaud, instigated by the Jesuits in 1845, brought persecution to the Brethren in the canton and in other parts of French Switzerland, and Darby felt his own life insecure there.
He returned to England, and his reappearance was accompanied by divisions among the Brethren at home. These divisions began at Plymouth. Mr B. Wills Newton, at the head of the community there, was accused of departing from the testimony of the Brethren against an official ministry, and of reintroducing the spirit of clericalism. Unable to detach the congregation from the preacher, Darby began a rival and separate assembly. The majority of the Brethren out of Plymouth supported Darby, but a minority kept by Newton. The separation became wider in 1847 on the discovery of supposed heretical teaching by Newton. In 1848 another division took place. The Bethesda congregation at Bristol, where Mr George Müller was the most influential member, received into communion several of Newton’s followers and justified their action. A large number of communities approved of their conduct; others were strongly opposed to it. Out of this came the separation into Neutral Brethren led by Müller, and Exclusive Brethren or Darbyites, who refused to hold communion with the followers of Newton or Müller. The exclusives, who were the more numerous, suffered further divisions. An Irish clergyman named duff had adopted the views of Mr Pearsall Smith, and when these were repudiated seceded with his followers. The most important division among the exclusives came to a crisis in 1881, when Mr William Kelly and Mr Darby became the recognized leaders of two sections who separated on some point of discipline. There are therefore at least five official divisions or sects of Plymouthists: (1) the followers of Mr B. Wills Newton; (2) the Neutrals, who incline to the Congregationalist idea that each assembly should judge for itself in matters of discipline, headed by Mr George Müller; (3) the Darbyite Exclusives; (4) the Exclusives who follow Mr Kelly; and (5) the followers of Mr Cluff. The fundamental principle of the Exclusives, “Separation from evil God’s principle of unity,” has led to many unimportant excommunications and separations besides those mentioned.
The theological views of the Brethren do not differ greatly from those held by evangelical Protestants (for a list of divergences, see Reid, Plymouth Brethrenism Unveiled and Refuted); they make the baptism of infants an open question and celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly. Their distinctive doctrines are ecclesiastical. They hold that all official ministry, anything like a clergy, whether on Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Congregationalist theories, is a denial of the spiritual priesthood of all believers, and a striving against the Holy Spirit. Hence it is a point of conscience to have no communion with any church which possesses a regular ministry. The gradual growth of this opinion, and perhaps the reasons for holding it, may be traced in Mr Darby’s earlier writings. While a curate in the Church of Ireland he was indignant with Archbishop Magee for stopping the progress of mission work among Roman Catholics by imposing on all who joined the church the oath of supremacy. This led Darby to the idea that established churches are as foreign to the spirit of Christianity as the papacy is (“Considerations addressed to the Archbishop of Dublin, &c.,” Coll. Works, vol. i. 1). The parochial system, when enforced to the extent of prohibiting the preaching of the gospel within a parish where the incumbent was opposed to it, led him to consider the whole system a hindrance to the proper work of the church and therefore anti-Christian (Thoughts on the present position of the Home Mission,” Coll. Works, i. 78). And the waste of power implied in the refusal to sanction lay-preaching seemed to him to lead to the conclusion that an official ministry was a refusal of the gifts of the Spirit to the church (“On Lay Preaching,” Coll. Works, p. 200). These three ideas seem to have led in the end to Plymouthism; and the movement, if it has had small results in the formation of a sect, has at least set churches to consider how they might make their machinery more elastic. Perhaps one of the reasons of the comparatively small number of Brethren may be found in their idea that their mission is not to the heathen but to “the awakened in the churches.”
Authorities.―Darby, Collected Works, 32 vols., edited by Kelly; Reid, Plymouth Brethrenism Unveiled and Refuted, 3d ed., 1880, and History and Literature of the so-called Plymouth Brethren, 2d ed., 1876; Miller, The Brethren, their Rise, Progress, and Testimony, 1879; Teulon, History and Doctrines of the Plymouth Brethren, 1888.