Plymouth Brethren People Didn't Used To Be Exclusive

I grew up knowing this. People would tell me that the "brethren of old," Darby, Kelly, Mackintosh, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, all found it proper on Sunday morning, if a Christian from another church or brethren group showed up and wanted to take communion/break bread, to accept them. 

   I'm beginning to suspect that one of the reasons people even still knew about this 19th century practice, which practice was generally no longer practised in the 20th, might have been partly because of Henry having written this article/tract/treatise on the subject, back then. He quotes those early brethren guys saying this outright. 

  You should be able to read about this, in case you ever wondered, here.  It's very clearly laid out, though in very Victorian verbiage.

  The dillemma looks like this: if it were the 1800s, and I was Baptist or Presbyterian and wanted to take communion Sunday morning in most Brethren groups, they'd have let me, and wouldn't have demanded that I "leave" that church I was a member of.  They would have been horrified at the idea that they were just another church (a sect, they would have called it.  Sects, sects, sects. That's all those early brethren talked about).  The way they felt they were different from just another church was that they had no membership list.  If you were Baptist, you could stay Baptist, but they certainly wouldn't say you couldn't take communion Sunday morning.  They'd have been appalled at the idea, in fact.  They would have said that they themselves part of the Church, the only Christian group, the same one everyone was part of, and would deny that they were "in" or "out" of anything smaller than that.

  But that's changed.  I've heard some people (like one of my favourite uncles) announce that, should a Baptist or Presbyterian show up at their door Sunday morning, that that person would be allowed to take communion, and wouldn't be required to get "out" of their own church, and "into" ours first.  That sounds great.  Fact is, though, I can't take communion there.  Anyone from another church maybe, but not me.  Because my church kicked me out under false pretenses nigh on twenty years ago, refuses to talk about it with me or anyone else, and would never reverse that decision.  So I'm screwed.  If I were Methodist, and got excommunicated for drinking a glass of wine one time, or something like that, my uncle's Brethren group might well allow me to take communion (with real wine) anyway.  But as far as he's let on to me, I'm screwed.  Forever and anon.  There is no way back "in". 

  Anyway, the thing Henry wrote.  It shows very clearly how that change has happened.

  Many have also pointed to a letter by a guy named Anthony Norris Groves who famously wrote early brethren dude John Nelson Darby a letter which predicted that, with how the brethren were changing in attitude, they'd soon be known for whom and what they were against, and not Who they had previously been for.  This, clearly, is what took place long before the death of Victoria.
  Now modern brethren fear this kind of letter.  Because if they believe it, it might make them into what are called "Open Brethren."  Heaven perish the thought.  Being closed is the point, isn't it?  The only thing that's worse than Open Brethren (some of whom might actually end up in Heaven one day) is Pentecostals. Don't call a Brethren person "Pentecostal," even if he or she raises her voice, gets happy about something Christian, or expresses emotions.  Because them's fighting words.