William Blair Neatby

“ Hoping much from a new effort after unity and simplicity made under such brilliant auspices and associated with so powerful a ministry,—and feeling above all things the immense fascination of the man who called upon them to follow him fearlessly along the way on which alone Heaven’s favour rested,—they committed themselves to his guidance with a contagious enthusiasm. Herzog raises the cry that has been raised ever since in every land, that Darbyism robbed the pastors of the élite of their flocks ”

“ At the same time, we must deplore that Darby should have lost the opportunity of strengthening the hands of the men who, in the middle of last century, were effecting such a gallant stand in Switzerland on behalf of the evangelical principles that he most truly loved. Only the lack of a tolerable theological perspective prevented Darby from becoming the welcome and powerful ally of the Rochats and Oliviers of Vaud, and of the more famous, and not less devout, Merles and Gaussens of Geneva. ”

“ Müller attributes the unhappy state of the Baptist church at Stuttgart to the want of the settled practice of liberty of ministry, and with more plausibility to the “undue stress” that had been laid on “believers’ baptism” and “separation from State churches”.
“Baptism and separation from the State Church had at last become almost everything to these dear brethren. ‘We are the Church. Truth is only to be found among us. All others are in error and in Babylon.’ These were the phrases used again and again by our brother ― ... This spiritual pride had led from one error to another. ”

“ Darby seeks less to convert souls than to unite under his direction souls already converted, we gladly acknowledge that he deserved to a great extent the compliments that were paid him. There certainly is to be found in him a combination of fine and great qualities. His conversion, we have no reason whatever to doubt, was real and sincere. He is capable of much devotion to the Lord’s cause, and he has given striking proofs of it. He is a man of indefatigable activity, and at the same time of great originality and independence of mind. ”

“ Especially he [Darby] obstinately refused to take part in the discussions; but they pressed him, putting it to him as an obligation of Christian charity to declare himself on matters of such importance. In the end, as if weary of contention, he submitted to the desired conference, but only to astonish his very partisans by the rashness of his assertions, often contradictory; by the vagueness of his expressions, and by his wretched stratagem of jumping off from one subject to another. ”

“ His position as Professor in the State Church’s Theological College at Lausanne, and his great eminence as a theologian, lend special value and interest to his polemic. Perhaps no theologian of an equally wide reputation has devoted so much attention to any episode in the history of the Brethren. I refer to J.J. Herzog, the editor of the Real-encyclopadie. Herzog writes, as I have said, from the standpoint, of an avowed and determined enemy of Darbyism. He is never indeed intentionally unfair, and at times he pays tributes to Darby that he might defensibly have withheld ”

“ Darby’s replies to Rochat are favourable specimens of his controversial manner. He does not indeed always write in perfect taste, but he refers to Rochat with respect, and even with cordiality. “I know no person,” he says, “at least so it seems to me, who desires more faithfully to fill it [‘the relation of a pastor to the sheep of God’s flock ’] than he whose pamphlet has given rise to these pages.” In the reply to Olivier the tone is far less pleasant; there is more readiness to insinuate unworthy motives, and the self-sufficiency amounts sometimes to arrogance. ”

“ No Protestant can dispute that the Church viewed as a single visible organisation [8] has collapsed; and even a very high Anglican, regarding the Church as conterminous with Episcopal communion, can scarcely ignore the fact that deep lines of cleavage are driven through and through it by mutual excommunications and anathemas. It does not follow, however, that Darby could speak with propriety of the ruin of the Church on the ground of the breaches in its outward frame, unless he considered that the outward frame was of the essence of the Church. ”

“ He considered (as many perfectly friendly observers have done since) that the meetings of the Brethren, in order to be profitable, generally required the presence of some persons of commanding superiority. Darby, in reply, did not deny these blemishes; indeed he seems to allow that there was truth in the allegations. But he refused to attach much weight to them, and the refusal may be justified. Flaws are pardonable in a new experiment. ”

“ Now, as his own mind laid such an undue stress upon baptism, and as there was no free working of the Holy Spirit, so that any other brother might have brought out at their meetings what the Lord might have laid upon his heart, what could there have been expected otherwise than that after a time the whole noble little band of disciples, who had taken so trying a stand as to be separated from the State Church, should become unsound in the faith. ”

“ There existed in Vaud a certain religious malaise, of which the growth of Methodism in an otherwise uncongenial soil had been a symptom. The Free Church had yielded less satisfaction than its promoters had hoped, and the minds of its adherents were prepared to hail the charms with which the certain future—doubtless it was said, the near future—was invested in Darby’s prophetic dissertations. He was never “weary,” Herzog tells us, “of urging on his hearers this decisive word: ‘Prophecy tends to snatch us from the present evil age ”

“ It must also be remembered that the controversy with Olivier was the later, and the stress of conflict appears to have told on Darby’s temper. Some excuse may well be made for a man sustaining single-handed, year after year, such a large and complicated undertaking. His influence, according to Herzog, declined from the time of a conference of the Dissenters of Lausanne, held in September, 1842, to examine his doctrine of the apostasy of the dispensation. ”

“ As it was, he waged against them all, in pamphlet after pamphlet, a warfare that left an incurable feud behind it. Happily we may believe that his followers, however self-limited, have really exercised a genuine influence for good on the Continent by maintaining a high standard (as I believe) of devoutness and evangelical simplicity. I understand that their meetings in Switzerland and the adjacent parts of France, twenty or thirty years ago, were very numerous, well attended, and in many cases fervent and spiritual. ”

“ Another thing on account of which the Church at Stuttgart is a warning is this: When these dear brethren left the State Church of the Kingdom of Wirtemberg, on account of which they had many trials, they did not meet together in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, but they took some Baptist church ... for a model. ... Brother — becomes their teaching elder, and ... he alone speaks at all the meetings (with few exceptions) . ”

“ This I did ... because they knew not yet what was meant by meeting in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. But, at last, after we had for about eight weeks or more spent two evenings a week together over those passages, and others, setting forth the same truths. ... ”