William Blair Neatby

“ I have no admiration for Darby’s resort to the diabolus e machina; but it is difficult to resist the feeling that some malignant spell was cast over the mind of such a man, and over the minds of others like him, to make them so far forget, in dealing with Newton, all those principles of humanity and uprightness which they illustriously exemplified in the other relations of life. If Christian men would only lay aside their most superfluous anxieties for the ark of God, the Church would surely be saved nine-tenths of its miseries and scandals. ”

“ Not often have men been called to mark the passing of a stranger or more complex personality. The saint of patient, tranquil contemplation, the theologian of deep, mystical insight, the apostle of tireless energy and total self-devotion, the ecclesiastic of restless ambitions and stormy strifes,—all were withdrawn from us in John Nelson Darby.
His end is no occasion for harsh judgments. Those who accept the account given in this work, if they cannot, on a review of his life as a whole, acquit him, will have no wish to condemn him. ”

“ Indeed it is a simple duty to assert that the virtues of the contemplative life—its elevated standard of personal dignity, its devoutness of tone, its refinement of feeling, its tranquil saintliness—can seldom have been more strikingly exemplified. [5] It is not merely that the Brethren have had, at all events in the days that are gone by, more than their share of saintly lives, but also that the general level of devoutness has been, after making every deduction, exceptionally high. ”

“ The Beginnings of Brethrenism—the Dublin Movement Twelve years ago Dr. Alexander, the present Primate of Ireland, described the warfare of his own church in the following remarkable terms: “The hill up which our little host must march is steep, and the hail beats in our faces. We hear the steady tramp of the serried ranks of Rome round us; the shout of the marauders of Plymouth rises, as they, ever and anon, cut off a few stragglers. We draw close, and grip our muskets harder.” ”

“ I feel bound in conscience to oppose in every legitimate way. ... I desire to produce in the minds of the dear Brethren everywhere, the same strong sense that pervades my own, of the evil of this system—and this is one object of my labour everywhere. ”

“ No Anglo-Catholic could have a greater contempt for such a phrase as “denominational preferences”; and the Anglo-Catholic is a very fortunate person if he ever attains to an equally lofty and serene confidence in the exclusive claims of his own system. The moderation of Protestants has put them at a disadvantage. They have had no substitute to offer for the fascinating claim to an exclusive possession of Divine warrant. But the Brethren, hampered by no such drawback, have confronted the highest claims of High Anglicans with claims at least as lofty, and a confidence much more disdainful. ”

“ What are we to think of the ecclesiastical position in which the atmosphere is so rarefied that a true Christian cannot long walk in it, unless he be endowed with an extraordinary spirituality? Such was not at the beginning the provision of the Lord for His flock. Is it too much to say that, for the luxury of breathing such an ethereal atmosphere, the leaders of the Brethren had neglected divine safeguards that our palpable infirmities have always called for, and had denounced the service of common sense as unworthy of the House of God? Dorman’s own words seem to justify the conclusion. ”

“ It is not the Darby that Groves and Newman loved for his large-heartedness in Dublin; nor even the Darby to whom his enemies bore honourable witness in Switzerland. I suppose it is well-nigh impossible for a man to be treated as infallible through a long series of years by thousands of his fellow-creatures, without suffering grievous moral deterioration; and arrogance and ruthlessness are obviously the qualities most likely to be developed. ”

“ Indeed the undoubted power of Darbyism was often a trial to the rival section of the Brethren. John Howard suggested that the “power” might come from a most sinister source; but we are not reduced to this expedient. The strength of Darby’s party lay in its homogeneity. The universal pressure of one iron will ensured a common action. The universal inspiration of one imperial spirit produced a common aim and a common enthusiasm. Discipline was all-pervading and resistless. A party thus equipped for action, and exactly knowing what it wanted, might well be strong ”

“ But I deny that His favours are so indiscriminately bestowed as to constitute no criterion whatever of His approval.
In view of the history of Brethrenism, it is a remarkable thing that it still exerts no mean power of attraction. It is idle to seek the explanation of this outside the real excellences of the sect. The Brethren handle spiritual topics with an absolute fearlessness. There is no apologetic tone,—there is no prudent dilution of the spiritual by the secular,—in their ministry. ”

“ That we thus get a list of almost all the names of men who had taken a leading part in the movement before 1830 is a striking proof, not only of the fervour of the zeal of the first Brethren, and of their readiness to stake everything on principles of action that may now appear to us rather visionary, but also of their superiority to any ambition to found a new sect. To follow Groves to Bagdad, on a mission that must be deemed singularly unpromising, was the prevailing passion in Dublin. ”

“ Those who have recognised that Brethrenism followed at the first a genuine spiritual impulse in its revolt against a Church crippled by party spirit and deadened by secularity, have perhaps felt surprise that its authors should not have found solace and satisfaction in the circle where the ardour kindled by the revival of the eighteenth century still glowed. ”

“ I do not contest the point, that in Congregationalism there was at first liberty of ministry, but that had scarcely any duration. That liberty has existed and still exists among Quakers; but whilst admitting the liberty of ministry, the work of the [Plymouth] brethren rests on much broader foundations. While taking as a foundation the great truths of the gospel, here are the principles which distinguish it: the unity of the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit come down from above, the witness of a perfect redemption, accomplished by Him who is seated there at the right hand of the Father. ”

“ Woe be to them if they love the brethren Müller and Craik or their own ease more than the souls of saints dear to Christ! And I plainly urge upon them that to receive any one from Bethesda (unless in any exceptional case of ignorance of what has passed) is opening the door now to the infection of the abominable evil from which at so much painful cost we have been delivered. It has been formally and deliberately admitted at Bethesda under the plea of not investigating it (itself a principle which refuses to watch against roots of bitterness) , and really palliated. ”

“ Another great evil attending the institution was that the coarser-minded members of the community could not see, even in the case of men of approved qualifications, that “faith-brethren” lived by anything but charity. They therefore felt free to criticise every item of expenditure within the preacher’s family, as if he had not as truly earned his pittance as they their own probably far ampler livelihood. It may be imagined in how degrading a position men who had made large social sacrifices to unite themselves with the Brethren might occasionally find themselves placed. ”

“ In the whole history of Christendom no man has ever entertained so extravagant a conception of sacramental union. If Compton Street Chapel admitted Newton to communion it became itself even as Newton. If Captain Woodfall took the communion at Compton Street, he became as Compton Street, and therefore as Newton. If Bethesda Chapel had even excommunicated Captain Woodfall, but had refused to excommunicate one of its own members that had taken the communion with Captain Woodfall somewhere on the Continent, it would have become in the same completeness identified with Newton. ”

“ On the whole it is not to be wondered at that Darby was freely reproached with inconsistency. In condemning every existing conception, he had in fact excluded all the possible alternatives. There was nothing essentially new for him to try. On the other hand, he would not use the real differentia of his system (that is, liberty of ministry in conjunction with the observance of the communion) as his watchword, because he was determined to base himself on nothing less than a true view of the Church. ”

“ If the Brethren disbelieve this, dare they say that their own missions disprove it? The assumption of Brethrenism is that God will work a standing miracle to accomplish that which He has in reality entrusted to the operation of those principles of organisation, subordination, and mutual responsibility with which the very existence of human society is bound up. ”

“ Yet this old campaigner of the first days of Brethrenism was one of the bravest and most single-hearted men ever found in its ranks. He belonged, moreover, to the small class of theologians who find it easier to suffer for their convictions than to persecute. In the Plymouth schism of 1845 he had laboured to dissuade Darby from forming a fresh communion, and we have seen him shortly afterwards employed in a work of pacification at Bath; while his plea for a more comprehensive spirit towards the older denominations is unique in the story of the Brethren. ”

“ The puzzle is to know how liberty of ministry can be so solemnly binding on some occasions, and not at all on others. The ordinary answer is that it is binding on occasions of a “church” character. The application of this principle is easy. When open ministry is desired, it is understood that the Brethren assemble in an ecclesiastical capacity; when it is not desired, the contrary hypothesis is at hand. ”

“ It is into this position, dear Darby, I feel some little flocks are fast tending, if they have not already attained it. Making light not life the measure of communion. ... Was not the principle we laid down as to separation from all existing bodies at the outset this: that we felt ourselves bound to separate from all individuals and systems, so far as they required us to do what our consciences would not allow, or restrained us from doing what our consciences required, and no further? ”

“ It is impossible not to feel for Newton. Darby had refused his very fair and reasonable proposal for arbitration. The investigation of the ten had fallen through. All that remained was Darby’s appeal to a church-meeting at Ebrington Street. This Newton and the other leaders of the church disallowed. An investigation by the church was not, from their point of view, a desirable course; and assuredly it was not one that Darby had the least right to insist on. He had voluntarily put himself outside the communion of the church, and had therefore clearly no claim to be heard before it. ”

“ A universal choice had to be made between the two illogical positions. Those most deeply imbued with the High Church conception bowed to Darby; those that were tinctured with a somewhat more liberal and generous Christianity followed the lead of Mr. Kelly.
“Bowing to Park Street” became a mania amongst Brethren. No devotee of Rome ever bowed to the authority of the chair of St. Peter with more relish. A good deal of hot Protestant blood was stirred, however, by the spectacle, and the cry of “Popery” was freely raised. ”

“ In the providence of God, a dormant Church has perhaps not seldom been awakened by measures adapted to the emergency of the moment, and suited to a peculiar energy of faith on the part of the reformer who has adopted them. Whether Groves were right in proposing analogous methods in the worship of the Church, where many persons are involved, and where the average of faith hardly ever rises very high, may well be questioned, even if he had only designed to suggest a passing phase of Christian testimony. ”

“ I am confident that I do not overstate the case for the Brethren; and surely nothing could be more futile than to seek to account for a movement that has exercised an influence so deep and wide, without the frankest acknowledgment that it must have contained elements of high excellence. The problem is to explain how a system, labouring under such great and palpable drawbacks, has for seventy years been draining the churches of a not contemptible proportion of their most spiritual members ”

“ Fully as we must recognise the gigantic failure of the attempt to embody it, we may yet admit that the conception is a striking and original one. But it is certain that nothing less than a monumental enthusiasm could have initiated—or, still more, could have sustained—a movement that aimed at realising so impracticable an ideal.
It has been often observed that, through a life of ceaseless controversy, devotional literature still remained Darby’s favourite occupation. ”

“ Both Newton and his friends explained repeatedly that by “mortal” they intended only “capable of dying”; yet their opponents charged them with teaching “mortality” in a sense that they expressly disclaimed. Darby was not deceived. “Mortal,” he says, “is a word used in two senses—being capable of dying, and being actually subject to death as a necessity. Now of course Christ was capable of dying, or he could not die. But the doctrine taught here is that he was mortal as we are.” ”

“ Furthermore, when we pass from Darbyism to Open Brethrenism, we leave utterly behind us the supercilious contempt for aggressive evangelisation. Both at home and abroad the Open Brethren give themselves to mission work with ardour. Their stations are dotted over the face of the whole earth. ”

“ God has not seen fit to qualify every useful missionary to prosecute his work in direct responsibility to Christ, apart from all mediate human authority; and He has not seen fit to qualify every missionary to trust Him for maintenance, positively apart from all mediate human channels of supply. The Brethren of course simply cannot, in the very nature of things, act on the contrary supposition; but in trying to do so as far as they can, they may certainly succeed in introducing a great deal of unnecessary confusion and weakness into their work. ”

“ For the first time in my life I saw a man earnestly turning into reality the principles which others confessed with their lips only. That the words of the New Testament contained the highest truth accessible to man,—truth not to be taken from nor added to,—all (as I thought) confessed: never before had I seen a man so resolved that no word of it should be a dead letter to him. ”

“ We may link with this the interesting fact that the Brethren entirely keep their own poor, and must then admit that they have copied the primitive in a way that puts to the blush a great party that has the primitive constantly in its mouth; and that if the Plymouth Brother, even in the day of his decadence, is still a power to be reckoned with, he has earned his continuance, in the teeth of many faults that might well have been thought certain to cut his career short, by the zealous practice of some very solid virtues. ”

“ Newton had not applied for fellowship, and therefore the church was not under necessity to decide on his case in order to guide itself in an actual emergency. If excommunication was more than the church intended, its decision was merely a totally uncalled-for intimation to Newton that if he did present himself he would be refused. Tregelles was surely justified in saying, “I have no doubt, but that it is supposed that the sentence is to act as an excommunication; but do you expect to find Christian men in general to acquiesce in such an issue from such proceedings? ”

“ With every desire to enter sympathetically into the point of view of the Brethren, it can scarcely be denied that in this respect they are hopelessly inconsistent. If it be presumption to recognise elders without apostolic ratification (direct or indirect) , why should it not be presumption to hold an open meeting without miraculous gifts? Indeed it would seem to most people that miraculous gifts have a much closer connexion with liberty of ministry than apostolic ratification with the office of the eldership. ”

“ But the epoch of Exclusivism really derives its whole character, and therefore its sovereign explanation, from the personality of Darby. It is scarcely possible to write the story of the Brethren without bearing hardly on them. In their narrow and obscure sphere,—in their life of almost monastic seclusion, and, in ordinary circumstances, of scarcely less than monastic quietude,—they hardly have a history beyond the history of their quarrels. Consequently, they have come before the public in a light that does them a great injustice ”

“ There is no truth more established in my own mind than this; that to occupy position of the maximum of power, in witnessing to the consciences of others, you must stand before their unbiassed judgment as evidently wishing to allow in them more than their own consciences allow, rather than less, proving that your heart of love is more alive to find a covering for faults, than your eagle eye of light to discover them.” An argumentum ad hominem follows. It must be remembered that Darby almost alone among the earlier Brethren remained a pedobaptist. ”

“ To do the common things of life as under the lordship of Christ, and as so many acts of service to Him, was certainly the ideal of the Brethren, as it was of the Jansenists and of other excellent men whose High Churchism is not doubtful. But the Brethren, like the Jansenists, placed Christian perfection, and indeed Christian duty, in as total a seclusion as possible from the common pursuits of men, even in the case of pursuits that are lawful, and indeed necessary. ”

“ They may sometimes speak unwisely, illiberally, ignorantly; their system of ministry almost ensures the occasional entrance of the grotesque; but they speak as if religion were the one business of life, instead of allowing secular topics to encroach even upon the narrow limits of time ostensibly devoted to spiritual things. That they often compare favourably with their neighbours in this respect constitutes a main element in their strength.
The open ministry of the Brethren, whatever may be said for it on the side of pure theory, has been a very qualified success indeed in practice. ”

“ Once the great world beyond was fairly shut out, Brethrenism really offered a carrière ouverte aux talents; and, above all, it offered a full ministerial career to capable men who were unwilling or unable to make the ministry their profession. And the great world was very thoroughly shut out by the genuine Darbyite. The world might not value his treasure; but the least insight into it was more than the world could buy from him. The contempt with which others too often looked down upon the Brethren contained a suspicious alloy of anger ”

“ Of all the hymns of the Brethren—and no one can deny the exceptional beauty of very many of them—Darby’s are unequalled (I had almost said unapproached) for depth, force and grandeur; though Darby put himself at a serious disadvantage (especially in comparison with so exquisitely graceful a writer as Sir Edward Denny) by his involved and uncouth style of composition.
I have often heard people who were not blind to Darby’s faults say with immense emphasis, “He was a great man”. If a magnanimous simplicity makes a man great, they were right. ”