John Nelson Darby

“ I said, I supposed Young and Pridham as they had been already to Mr. Newton. For the rest, any Mr. Newton wished to bring as his friends. I declined bringing any. I have always avoided the very semblance of party. Subsequently Hill desired to come. Naylor from Jersey having been conversant with affairs at Plymouth was there, and Mr. Pridham’s brother, and Mr. Mc’Adam. The rest, thirteen in all besides Mr. N. and myself, were Mr. N.’s friends. Mr. Harris, Soltau, Batten, Dyer, Clulow, Johnstone, Rhind, A. Pridham, C. Pridham, Naylor, Hill, Young, Mc’Adam from Exeter. ”

“ Hardly less valuable is the Memoir of A. N. Groves by his widow. For the original environment of Brethrenism, Professor G. T. Stokes’ article, “John Nelson Darby,” Contemtporary Review, October 1885; D’Acy Sirr, Memoir of the last Archbishop of Tuam. Recollections of J. G. Bellett, by his daughter, is scanty for the early period, and deals throughout chiefly with Bellett’s private life. The first three tracts by Darby, reprinted in his Collected Writings, Ecclesiastical, vol. i. ”

“ Newton isolated himself much from the other brethren. He held reading meetings, and would not allow the labouring brethren to attend them: saying it was bad for the taught to hear the authority of the teachers called in question, as it shook confidence in them. At the latter prophetic meetings in Ireland he did not attend. At one of them, instead of going, he held a meeting for himself at Plymouth, on the questions proposed and discussed among the brethren in Ireland, and published his views on them under the title of “Answers to Plymouth Questions.” ”

“ Nine-tenths of the saints out of Plymouth would take the statement as true: and I should be very sorry to think that they would suppose it possible to be otherwise, until forced to it. I have yet a difficulty myself, in believing the things I know to be true. At Plymouth the majority were Mr. Newton’s party at all cost. If any separated themselves from it, they were not spoken to, nor owned as Christians. Even their temporal interests, injured as far as possible. ”

“ Christ is become of no effect unto you; as many of you as are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace. And what he especially appeals to in testimony of this is, that they had received the Holy Ghost as the seal of this doctrine of being justified by faith and not by works of law ”

“ If it was so bad as to be unbearable they must only leave.
The paper signed by the Plymouth leaders to clear Mr. Newton did more harm than good to their cause at Plymouth, as they were known by all to be the parties implicated, and it implied that the strangers would not do it. But the brethren from a distance having in fact come to no conclusion, for whose enquiry I had waited to give time, I had no longer now any reason for delay, and I proposed breaking bread. ”

“ True holy liberty, true divine knowledge, all and every enjoyment of blessings, and abounding in hope, and help in our infirmities, are attributed to the Holy Ghost; our good fruits are the fruits of the Spirit; our joy is joy in the Holy Ghost; our love, love in the Spirit; it is by one Spirit through Christ we have access to the Father; “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his;” ”

“ N. has stated that the Churches are independent. As to seven my answer is that it is as regards Mr. Newton, a bold untruth. I appeal to Mr. Code, Mr. Potter, Lord Congleton, Sir A. Campbell. I ask the whole number of those who came whether Mr. Newton did not preface his communications to them, by saying, that if they came to meddle in Plymouth affairs he would tell them nothing at all. They all know that every opportunity was not given. That Mr. Newton would not meet me before those brethren, nor the brethren at large, nor a limited number of them. ”

“ If he had two talents or five talents, he was to trade with them—a wicked and slothful servant if he did not; as every man had received the gift, he was so to minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God; women were to keep silence in the assemblies; men were to exercise their gifts according to prescribed order; these gifts were set in the whole church at large, and exercised according to God’s will, as a distinct member of the one whole body. ”

“ Nor shall I say a word of the meanness of courting the pity of strangers, by publishing every word they can scrape together, out of its context, when for years they have been calumniating their brethren, and undermining them everywhere as subverting Christianity, and it has been borne with. And when resisted openly and honestly, crying out as if they were persecuted and oppressed. Does any one believe that they have not accused of falsehood, for example, myself, Wigram, Sir A. Campbell, over and over again. ”

“ Mr. Newton broke out in great anger, saying, that he waived all formal objections, that he did seek to make a focus of Plymouth, and that his object was to have union in testimony there, against the other brethren, (i.e. as explained, and is evident their teaching,) and that he trusted to have at least Devonshire and Somersetshire under his influence for the purpose: and that it was not the first time that I had thwarted and spoiled his plans. ”

“ Orthodox truths may, as we have seen in one of the cases I have supposed, be maintained : but as it is the work of the Holy Ghost alone to present Christ to the soul, so that it should be in the power of that living faith which sets the soul in blessed fellowship with the Father, in true joy, leaving the impress of its own everlasting nature upon it, which the Holy Ghost can alone give, and the Holy Ghost alone maintain, the consequence is that such communion with Christ is lost, and the conscience ceases to be before God. ”

“ The Father sending the Son was the grand and mighty basis of Christianity, and the sending of the Spirit, by both the Father and a glorified Christ, was a witness of His Lordship and exaltation, and the great testimony in the world, and that by which we know the value of the work and exaltation of One, and our relationship with the other, as sons, by grace with Him ”

“ I say this much to avoid mistakes, but it is not my subject; man had duties as man, but he has failed in them; he is a sinner, and is lost, according to Christianity. The full exposition given in the Romans on this great point is, that Gentiles were lawless, the Jews law-breakers; that there was none righteous, no, not one; that every mouth was stopped and all the world guilty before God; all had sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that was in Christ Jesus. ”

“ N. himself that the husband (not in communion) of one sister met Mr. Newton and told him that had he been still of the world he must have used his cane to him. One poor man excited by the sisters refused to eat with his own wife till he got her back to Ebrington Street. It has been attempted since shame has fallen upon them about it, to say it was only to be done to leaders. Were the sisters, one of whom only came to hear in Raleigh Street, who sent to dear Mrs. Newton flowers and little things suited to the sick when she was ill, leaders? ”

“ This is the Church’s place through the recognition of Sonship, while the throne is above. But it is not in union and headship, but kingdom and patience. Still, in whatever form, the word she ministers is the word of God or the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Lordship in itself is not the highest title of Christ: “God hath made Him both Lord and Christ.” To us there is but one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ As the Church instantly broke forth in answer on the Church revelation of Jesus, in exactly corresponding praises to His then revealed character, so now, on the revelation of His millennial and glorified character, it breaks forth by the Spirit which never leaves it, let it be ever so desolate, but rather inspires it with hope in the answering and suitable cry of “Come!” and then looks round, in the sense of this, to renew its service of grace to the world. ”

“ The title was full: they were gone to Him; but they did not before that actually possess the kingdom nor did He Himself: the horse and the throne are distinct things—imperial, active, subduing power—and full peaceable judicial power as king. ”

“ There is evil unconfessed and unjudged; evil, I judge of the very worst kind, speaking of evil in a Christian assembly, and I suppose there must be Scriptures for leaving it, or we should never have been gathered at all. I will only add, as much has been said in print of Mr. Soltau’s asking Mr. Harris to stay, that he asked Mr. Harris to stay, to help him to resist Mr. Newton, against whom he felt unable to make head alone, and he stated to Mr. Hill, that all the evil had come from letting him have his own way. Here you have the history of Plymouth. ”

“ The epistle is found attached to the New Testament in the MSS, as in Sinaiticus, along with Hermas; he distinctly substitutes (ii.) men’s offering themselves for the burnt-offerings, and quotes the prophets as putting man’s conduct in the place of sacrifices. It is an utter departure from the gospel as found in scripture, with happy signs that he did not intend to deny it.
In Polycarp we have one of the best of these epistles, and he quotes Paul to the Ephesians: “Knowing that by grace ye are saved, not by works, but by the faith of God, through Jesus Christ,” again making it vague. ”

“ So again, “whom the Father will send in my name;” when He is come he will reprove (convict) the world of sin, and righteousness, and judgment, guide the disciples into all truth, shew them things to come. So Peter, when He was come according to promise, “being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost [note this reception of it for others on His exaltation] , he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear;” and when pricked in their hearts they asked, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” ”

“ But when we come to a more positive fulfilment of judgment, and the actual bringing it into effect, on the separation of the saints out of the scene, and the closing the testimony of grace which gathered into the heavenlies, then there must be something more distinct, something which makes way for the eastern kings to take their part in the great catastrophe. ”

“ I said as an enquiry into sectarianism, any could enquire as well as me, any judgment on Mr. Newton’s conduct having been avoided. Being pressed, I began by stating, that what I objected to was the sectarianism (I had previously declared to Mr. Harris, that I would not enter on the prophetic question as a doctrinal thing; it was a moral question to me) . ”

“ Newton to do as he pleased with. That bringing it before a public assembly was repeating the grievance, and that Matt. xviii. did not apply because it was a wrong done in public. They had never been near me at all (save Lord Congleton, and with him there was nothing to say to this) . They had never asked me what my charges were : and they had never asked a word of five or six brethren present at the April meeting, then in or near Plymouth, not partisans of Mr. N. that is, Messrs. Harris, C. Pridham, Mc’Adam, Naylor, Hill. ”

“ Christ granted to it certain remedial sacraments, to the end that it might acknowledge the difference between what is merited by nature and what it received by grace, and that as nature could bring punishment only, grace, not called grace if granted to merit, might furnish whatever appertains to salvation. ”

“ They were a firstfruits redeemed from the earth; redeemed from among men. The body of the Church, in its heavenly character, had passed out of the scene before—had nothing to do with the earth. The refusing the beast after, is for preservation in an earthly place—a preservation enforced by a warning of unmingled wrath in the presence of the holy angels, the ministers of His providence, and of the Lamb, the Sufferer, whose grace, and power, and title, they refused and rejected in the great controversy. ”

“ Æneas and Tabitha are the witnesses of his power; and the calling of the Gentiles is by his mouth, that the witness of the Jewish stock might still be preserved in grace, whatever the righteous justice of the dispensation might do in judgment (and so in dispensation the faithful partake of the ruin of the unfaithful, as Caleb and Joshua must wander in the wilderness) —and thereon extraordinary intervention might effect, besides, in one born out of due time, the witness of prerogative grace in the disorder of the dispensation, as to man. ”

“ The first sign of weakness is the gathering itself becoming the object of attention, instead of their being a people enjoying the blessedness of their position by the relationship and fellowship it gave them,with Christ, who had become, and was their abiding object, revealing withal God the Father. ”

“ Newton himself, at a prayer meeting, got up and went and sat down by the side of a young brother who gave out a hymn, and laid hold of his book. The hymn was, I believe, at last raised, but he was asked if he meant to pray too. The young man left, and goes to a free Church, where the gospel is preached. Brethren have been hindered speaking; and not only so, but there is not a person resident at Plymouth who frequented Ebrington Street, but, as Mr. ”