page_title: Plymouth Brethren
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Plymouth Brethren / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Holy Bible
context_page_description: The Plymouth Brethren or Assemblies of brethren are a conservative, low church, non-conformist, evangelical Christian movement whose history can be traced back to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s, where they originated from Anglicanism. The group emphasizes sola scriptura, the belief that the Bible is the supreme authority for church doctrine and practice, over and above any other source of authority. Plymouth Brethren generally see themselves as a network of like-minded free churches, not as a Christian denomination.
context_section_description: The Brethren movement began in Dublin, Ireland, where several groups of Christians met informally to celebrate the Lord's Supper together in 1827–28. The central figures were Anthony Norris Groves, a dentist studying theology at Trinity College; Edward Cronin, studying medicine, John Nelson Darby, a curate in County Wicklow; and John Gifford Bellett, a lawyer who brought them together. They did not require ministers or even an order of service, as their guide was the Bible alone.
  An important early stimulus was the study of prophecy, which was the subject of a number of annual meetings at Powerscourt House in County Wicklow starting in 1831. Lady Powerscourt had attended Henry Drummond's prophecy conferences at Albury Park, and Darby was espousing the same pre-tribulational view in 1831 as Edward Irving. Many people came to these meetings who became important in the English movement, including Benjamin Wills Newton and George Müller.
  The two main but conflicting aspirations of the movement were to create a holy and pure fellowship on one hand, and to allow all Christians into fellowship on the other. Believers in the movement felt that the established Church of England had abandoned or distorted many of the ancient traditions of Christendom, following decades of dissent and the expansion of Methodism and political revolutions in the United States and France. People in the movement wanted simply to meet together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ without reference to denominational differences.
  The first meeting in England was held in December 1831 in Plymouth. It was organised primarily by George Wigram, Benjamin Wills Newton, and John Nelson Darby. The movement soon spread throughout the United Kingdom, and the assembly in Plymouth had more than 1,000 people in fellowship in 1845. They became known as "the brethren from Plymouth" and were soon simply called "Plymouth Brethren". The term "Darbyites" is also used, especially when describing the Exclusive branch which has a more pronounced influence from Darby. Many within the movement refuse to accept any name other than "Christian".
  In 1845, Darby returned from an extended visit to Switzerland where he had achieved considerable success planting churches. He returned to Plymouth where Newton was in control, and he disagreed with some details in a book that Newton had published concerning the tribulation that was coming. He also objected to Newton's place as an elder in the Plymouth meeting. But several attempts to settle the quarrel in the presence of other brethren failed to produce any clear result. Two years later, Darby attacked Newton over a lecture that Newton had given on the 6th Psalm, and an exchange of tracts followed. Newton retracted some of his statements, but he eventually left Plymouth and established another chapel in London.
  Darby had instituted a second meeting at Plymouth, and he complained of the Bristol Bethesda assembly in 1848, in which George Müller was prominent; he was concerned because they had accepted a member from Ebrington Street, Newton's original chapel. Bethesda investigated the individual but defended their decision, and Darby was not satisfied. He issued a circular on 26 August 1848, cutting off Bethesda and all assemblies who received anyone who went there. This defined the essential characteristic of "exclusivism" which he pursued for the rest of his life.
  The Exclusive Brethren experienced many subsequent splits, scatterings, and recombinations. The Open Brethren also suffered one split (concerning the autonomy of assemblies) which occurred at different times in different parts of the world. Nevertheless, both the Exclusive and the Open Brethren continued to expand their congregations, with the opens expanding more rapidly than the exclusives.
  Darby visited Exclusive assemblies in America seven times between 1862 and 1877. Itinerant preachers from Scotland and Ireland established most of the early Open Brethren assemblies in America in the second half of the 19th century.
caption: Matthew 22:29 is cited by Plymouth Brethren in defense for the Bible being the road-map for their beliefs.
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