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Elitist Leadership and Congregational Participation Among Early Plymouth Brethren

When identifying the ‘catalyst for disaffection’ and the ‘trigger for individual secessions’ from the Establishment in the early nineteenth century, Grayson Carter recently concluded that ‘theological “extremism” was probably a more significant irritant than pastoral exasperation’. It is nevertheless evident that episcopal restraints on any ecclesiastical ‘irregularities’ and the dubious spiritual credentials of some of those controlling the appointment of both higher and lower clergy were also significant factors in the discontent of many who seceded in the 1830s. A quest for freedom from such constraints therefore often accompanied the special doctrinal emphases of those who would sooner or later quit the establishment. This was particularly true of the seceders known as the Plymouth Brethren whose congregations proliferated in the 1830s and ‘40s. With clerical ordination abandoned as unscriptural, their meetings came to be noted for spontaneous prayer and exhortation by any member of the congregation, but such an ‘institutionalizing’ of unprogrammed participation was liable to attract ‘free spirits’ whose orthodoxy and ‘manners’ could be questionable. This paper considers the way in which the precise doctrinal convictions and conservative social assumptions of such seceders could come into conflict with, and sometimes, at least for a while, keep at bay some of the elements unleashed by their professed desire for ecclesiastical freedom. Of particular interest is the interplay of social and doctrinal motivation.