[S.P.] Tregelles, a member of the [Plymouth] Brethren in those early days [~1830], tells us that the idea of a secret rapture at a secret coming of Christ had its origin in an “utterance” in Edward Irving’s church, and that this was taken to be the voice of the Spirit. Tregelles says, “It was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology respecting it arose. It came not from Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God.”¹S. P. Tregelles, The Hope of Christ’s Second Coming, first published in 1864, and now available at Ambassadors for Christ, Los Angeles, California. This doctrine together with other important modifications of the traditional futuristic view were vigorously promoted by [J.N.] Darby, and they have been popularized by the writings of William Kelly. – George Eldon Ladd, The Blessed Hope, 40-41

Dispensationalism started in the Plymouth Brethern churches in England in the 1800s. One of the most distinctive beliefs of that system is that Jesus will secretly return before The Great Tribulation to remove, or Rapture, his church, i.e. take it out of the world so that God’s wrath can be poured out. Ladd, writing in the 1950s, said that the view was popularized by William Kelly. More recently this view was popularized by Tim LaHaye in his Left Behind series of books.

This is the first time that I’ve heard that the teaching of a secret Rapture came from a supposed prophetic utterance. Keep in mind, this is one citation of one man. According to Ladd, Tregelles was a Brethren scholar respected for his work on the Greek New Testament. The “Edward Irving” mentioned was a man who spoke eloquently and widely on the imminence of Jesus’ return but in 1830 he published a tract that asserted that Jesus had a fallen human nature. Tregelles also said that the same “spirit” which gave the utterance was “not owning the true doctrine of our Lord’s incarnation in the same flesh and blood as His brethren, but without taint of sin.” That is, Irwin’s error and it sounds like Tregelles is claiming that the “spirit” that announced a secret return of Jesus also revealed Jesus’ supposed fallen human nature.

If accurate, this does not cast a good light on the origins of Dispensationalism.