Featured Isaac Watts

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No Darby did not invent the thinking of a "rapture." The first I came across the teaching was on a copy of a letter from Robert Baxter to "Mr Armstrong" dated August 3rd 1835, quoted in a book by Robert Baxter, Irvingism in its Rise, Progress, and Present State, 1836.
When we mention dispensationalism we are not speaking about earlier writers using the word dispensations, we understand it as a system promoting futurism and a future pre tribulation rapture. Great Historicist writers of the 19th like E B Elliott and henry Grattan Guinness mentioned dispensations, but I don't recall them mentioning what they meant by dispensations. asMy guess is that they referred to The old testament dispensation and the current dispensation. They were also pre mil. All this is similar to the writings of the early church writers. Both the ECW and Historicists took the book of Revelation and Daniel as figurative.
You said

• "I disagree. Certainly, they were premillennial, but they also recognized the dispensational thinking of the catching away of believers out of this world, the presentation of a final anti-christ, that believing gentiles were no longer excluded from the believing Israel, and so forth."

None of that is purely dispensational teaching, They taught things that were absolutely opposite to dispensational teaching. such as the let and hindrance in 2 Thess. 2. the 'what' was the Roman Empire and the 'he' was the Emperor.

They taught that the Roman empire would be divided into 10 kingdoms which it was, and that the antichrist would come out of those 10 kingdoms, which he did.

That is just not true. Pre-millennialism was a teaching of historicists long before dispensationalism was invented. What is exclusive to dispensationalism is the pre tribulation rapture.
I also apologise for my typing. I try to type too fast I guess seeing as have arthritis in my hands and also cataracts. Chrome also used to check my spelling but doesn't now. I suppose it has given up on me.

 

Absolutely.

 

On the other hand you should be able to read this:

• Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

 

My dad came to view the Brethren a cult due to their dispensational teaching.

 

I believe that that was Grace Partnership? Is that the correct name? Whatever the name they took over a local village chapel, The moderator was told his help was not needed but later they left the church and the former moderator became the pastor.

I was brought upn in the Open Brethren, till I was 15 then we moved to a new town and attended a "Inter Denominational Church" the pastor of which was a well known preacher, Lindsay Glegg. I was not saved at that time.
I then got into motor Bikes and went from bad to worse. Then one day I remembered a preacher from the previous mentioned church asking me "How are you with the Lord?" I realised I was far from the Lord and remembered Peter when he was sinking calling "Lord Save me." I realised I was sinking and called "Lord Save me."

From that moment I know I was saved. But what church to attend? I was sitting in a café near where I lived and a couple of young men were discussing their church. They mentioned their Bible Study. I got talking to them. They said their church was Elim, which I had never heard of, but seemed interesting, till one of them said he had hit a woman with his car and killed her. He said it was her fault and he felt no remorse. I thought if that wa me it would trouble me every day, so I didn't go to their church.

About that time I met a group with a van handing out tracts. Someone told me they were JW's but in fact they were Brethren. As they were a group I was familiar with I went to their church, or assembly as they called it. When my dad heard, he said to me "Beware of the Brethren, their teaching of the second coming is false." However when we moved to a new town I joined the Brethren where eventually I met my wife who had been converted from an Atheist family, at a covenanter summer camp when she was 14.

After we were married we went to a number of meetings on prophecy locally and in London. Then one evening one of our elders was speaking on one of the prophecies of Daniel and afterwards my wife said " He said this was going to hapen, then this was going to hapen, then that was going to happen, and I had my bible open expecting to see it written and could not see it there." I looked at the passage again and replied "No it is not." Then I remembered my dad's words "Beware of the Brethren, their teaching of the second coming is false."

At that point I began to look into the teaching and eventually agreed with him,

Martin regarding the your post from the ET regarding the name Plymouth Brethren,

• A man who dominated the movement in the early years was J. N. Darby (1800-1882) but in 1848 there was a deep division between Darby and the Plymouth brethren. The differences between the two groups were not insignificant. Darby insisted on separating from people who disagreed with his interpretations of Scripture, and a significant number of believers endorsed Darby’s policy and followed him. Those who followed Darby were known as ‘Exclusives’. They believed in a universal worldwide network of fellowships, with strong central leadership and a tight control of members.
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• In contrast, the Plymouth Brethren were called ‘Open Brethren’. For them, each local assembly is independent. The fellowship enjoyed between assemblies is spontaneous and spiritual, without impinging on the autonomy of the local assembly. The believers locally are themselves directly responsible to the Lord, not a human leader. This represents a major difference between the two sections of the Brethren movement.

Although my wife called them PB or Peeb. Brethren I have met call the Exclusives the Plymouth Brethren.

There was a man in our previous church whose parents were Exclusives. He sometime went to a meeting an a nearby house that was Exclusive. A man from our church who was an undertaker said they were the only religious group apart from the JWs who wouldn't let the UTs into the service.

There is a timber shop in Canterbury run by Exclusives who would not accept any form of payment card as "They are the work of the devil" as well as mobile phones. But I have not been there for some years so that may not be the case