THE Oxford man who dubbed Darby the Tertullian of the nineteenth century may possibly have had in mind his trenchant criticisms of two Archbishops, Magee and Whately, the one on Erastianism, and the other on Sabellianism. The former was in connection with a Pastoral Letter which Darby considered as an order to virtually turn the clergy into a religious police in Ireland, purely to curry favor with the English Government of the day. The latter was a few years later in connection with the Irish Education measures of 1832 upon which Darby felt very deeply and expressed himself very strongly, likening it to " the unholy marriage between Infidelity and Popery, whose banns have been first published in this unhappy country " apparently by Dr. Whately himself.
In these controversies Darby's legal training and theological acumen came into play as the careful reader will duly note. Archbishop Magee had issued a Pastoral Letter which brought to a standstill the Home Mission work into which Darby, then the Curate of Calary, had thrown himself heartily and with great success. This Pastoral Letter now required all converts from Roman Catholicism to take an oath of allegiance to King George. These converts were just the persons who least needed a guarantee of their loyalty, and on inquiring Romanists it had the most repellent effect, for it seemed to them a question between the Pope and the King, and not of CHRIST at all. Mr. Darby could not stand this, and vigorously protested against it. But Erastianism prevailed, and the qualms and increasingly serious doubts which had perturbed him before, now clamored for a decision. He would not disobey his diocesan, but he believed it a dishonor to CHRIST'S ministry and Church to create a religious police for currying favor with the Government. Little thought or cared the Archbishop what would be the ultimate consequence of forcing a mere country curate out of the clerical ranks by his timeserving Pastoral charge. But big doors swing on small hinges and great results from apparently small causes.
One result from the Archbishop's letter was that much which had been simmering in this country curate's mind was now brought to boiling point. Newman in the Apologia says that nine years prior to his secession, he had similar thoughts as to the Established Church to those which now terminated Darby's clerical career. " I could not get myself to see anything else than what I had so long fearfully suspected, from as far back as 1836-a mere national institution. As if my eyes were suddenly opened, so I saw it spontaneously, apart from any definite act of reason or any argument; and so I have seen it ever since."
Darby, who had already, as we have noticed, for conscience sake relinquished one lucrative profession, felt he must now abandon another of influence and dignity, as being, to him at least, untenable because unscriptural, and derogatory to the glory of CHRIST. His famous pamphlet on The Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ, afterward issued later in the first volume of the Christian Witness dates from this time. The one-time curate of Plymstock in Devon was the first Editor of the Christian Witness, and so heartily was he in agreement with Darby that no less than fourteen lengthy articles from the latter's pen appear in the first number, including the one on The Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ. It is interesting to note that before Darby published this pamphlet he had copies of it printed, and sent privately to the Archbishop himself, and to all the clergy of the diocese.
His churchmanship had received a severe shock, but for a time he continued in his mountain curacy, also occasionally visiting other parts of the country to preach, or speak at meetings of the various religious Societies.
The Editor of the Christian Witness in a preface reveals how deeply he too was interested. He says: " We believe, with sorrow and humiliation, that the Church of GOD has fallen far short of the glory and joy which belonged to it, as the chaste virgin espoused to CHRIST. To use the words of Archbishop Leighton on a different subject: 'O! quam profunda est et tenebrosa miserim abyssus in quam plorabili suo lapsu demersa est (Ecclesia Dei) cum yeti sui Boni non solum possessione, sed et cognition excideret et nec quodnam illud sit, nec qux sit redeundi via, quaque gradum revocet perspectum habeat.' We therefore desire, in all humbleness of mind, to receive every light which the SPIRIT of GOD may afford us, whether as to the position we are in, or the means of extrication from it, and to be faithful to that light."
Mr. Darby's timely trenchant protestations in the Irish Education Measure controversy in 1832, which was the occasion of his clash with the other Archbishop mentioned, Dr. Whately, now seem curiously like those of Dr. Clifford in the education controversies over sixty years later. Lengthy letters formed a great part of the method employed by Dr. Clifford, and what Dr. Parker in his last public letter most felicitously expressed as to these, would equally apply to J. N. Darby's written about a similar matter. " Letters like Dr. Clifford's are not casually shaken out of a man's coat-sleeve. They are full of knowledge, argument arid experience and must, by sheer cogency of reasoning, have carried conviction to all open minds."
This may equally be affirmed of the following indited by Darby in 1832:
" SIR, —I address you thus formally in a public document in which it is my object, not to express any personal feelings, but to investigate principles. Your language (as reported) has given me occasion to address you on the subject on which I write: a matter which I confess has occasioned some astonishment to my mind, though other principles than astonishment bring it into action. The character of the public meeting held in this city on the subject of the anti-scriptural system of education needs no comment at present. You were present at that meeting and spoke; but it is not my object to discuss the character of your speech. The unholy marriage between Infidelity and Popery, the devil's apostate counterpart of the union between the bride, the LAMB'S wife, and the great Head of the Church-whose banns have been first published in this unhappy country, if not adequately exposed (as I think none can feel its evil sufficiently), has yet given occasion to so loud an expression of principle as, I trust, will, under GOD, give stability to those who might otherwise have been entangled, and maintain the public expression of the right, here at least, before GOD, when all principle and allegiance towards Him have been so atrociously invaded. But you were following in your opposition in the rear of those to whom you owed canonical obedience. It was at least, sir, an unfriendly way of doing it.
" But not to leave seriousness, considering the path which the Archbishop has trodden, it was well you were behind him. Authority and circumstances hide much from the world, and I must feel that it is the assumed orthodoxy of official situation, which could alone blind the clergy of this country to the principles of the Archbishop by whom they are governed. Such principles known, I should be sorry indeed to follow, and the fullness of an episcopal robe does but ill conceal-even though one be behind it-the false principles which may be set before its face. The circumstances of the case are these: a scheme is set on foot whose professed object is to exclude the Scriptures from the school instruction of the children of this country, and this not for the purpose of meeting the poor people or consulting their feelings. It had required, Mr. Stanley states, the energetic exertion of the priests to prevent the people from embracing the proffered boon of instruction in the Word of GOD, the boon of GOD Himself; not then to meet the prejudices of the people, but in acquiescence, we learn from the same authority, with the principles of the Roman Catholic religion. The Scriptures are the witness, not only of the holiness of GOD, but of His love, of His prerogative love in CHRIST. The Archbishop has set himself as the main effectuator, as under the circumstances he certainly is, of a scheme which is professedly to meet the priests, in accordance with their principles, in excluding from the schools this witness of GOD'S love in CHRIST; for their introduction Mr. Stanley himself states to be the vital defect of the previous system.
" But the clergy are more deeply concerned in-this, and the laity too, than as far as I can see, they are aware. The only discerning spring of Christian activity, synergism in GOD'S love (for Christianity is the activity of GOD'S love), is the knowledge and love of CHRIST. The perception of His person is the great center and spring of all vital theology. To see this is the material of faith. He that seeth the SON and believeth on Him hath everlasting life.' Not to see this leaves a person in the darkness of this world.
" The Archbishop of Dublin is a Sabellian. Of the painful situation in which this may place the clergy it is not for me to judge. What the laity will feel in thinking of their association with him, on the general superintendence of the establishment, they must consider for themselves. But Sabellian-ism may be considered some questionable opinion or difference. But you must know, sir, that it strikes at the root of all vital as well as orthodox Christianity, by neutralizing the distinction between the FATHER and the SON. The FATHER'S sending the SON-the SON'S obedience to the FATHER-the whole scheme of mediatorial Christianity-that is, Christianity itself becomes lost in this form of infidelity. A Trinity in character, but not a Trinity of persons, in the essential force of that word, may ease the proud mind of man of that which is beyond its natural powers, but takes away, at the same time, the whole basis on which a sinner can rest by faith. Men may be guilty of Tritheism, and Sabellians may avoid this. But they also undermine the faith in another way.
" I care not, sir, for the term Sabellianism; but when the personality of the SON of GOD is avowedly attacked, I cannot be surprised that the person who does so should be the instrument of establishing the first open public act of infidelity-avowedly rejecting the Scriptures, to meet the principles of the Roman Catholic religion. It may not be unprofitable to see the suitableness of the agent to such a work. With what satisfaction anyone can follow in the rear, or own canonical obedience to such a one, I must leave to their own consciences and their fidelity to CHRIST to determine. Certainly the fate of the Archbishop has been unfortunate. Famous, if fame is to be trusted, for being opposed to the union of Church and State, he has with painful singularity united himself to it in its first public act of professed infidelity, to be the solitary agent of any consequence in carrying the blighting influence of their infidelity into general and diffusive operation.
" Dr. Whately may be amiable, affable in manner, and efficient in business; but truth is truth, and principle is principle, and talents (however great or over-estimated) and the most candid kindness of manner are but snares to the unwary. Satan is not foolish enough to make mischief disagreeable. These things appear to me, sir, not only heretical, and (as I should call it) infidel, on the most vital principle of Christianity, but, considering the circumstances in which the author of them is placed, sad want of principle. But when I consider that one who has sworn that the essential point of popish instruction and worship is a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit,' as Dr. Whately has, should be the principal agent for securing the instruction of the majority of the children of this country in it, and-their actual attendance on it, I cannot be surprised, sir. There never was a stronger instance of the principle, that, where the truth of the gospel did not exist, the grace or principle of it could not be found. I confess, sir, more heartless unprincipledness I never heard of. Nor, slight as Dr. Whately's tie may be to standards which have elevated him to the place from which he throws them down, will the refuge this may be afford, him much shelter. The results of such instruction as he is putting the children under I shall state in his own words. They are from a note to the same article. There is some ignorance on the subject shown in it, but it is immaterial to the present point.
“The correctness of a formal and deliberate confession of faith is not always of itself a sufficient safeguard against error, in the habitual impression of the mind. The Romanists flatter themselves that they are safe from idolatry, because they distinctly acknowledge the truth, that GOD only is to be served (namely, with latria), though they allow adoration (hyperdulia and dulia) to the Virgin and their saints, to images, and to relics. To which it has been justly replied, that, supposing this distinction correct in itself, it would be in practice nugatory, since the mass of the people must soon, as experience proves, lose sight of it entirely in their habitual devotions.'
“It must be a happy office to one who has a heart and a conscience to secure to the mass of the people instruction which must plunge them into idolatries, however people may flatter themselves. But I must not pursue this part of the subject, or I should say a great deal more than is needful; and the general principles of the subject are already before people's minds.
“I have very briefly brought the subject forward, stating little of my own views or feelings, not because I have them not, but because I rather desired the facts should be presented for consciences of others. GOD may bring good out of evil. But these sorts of circumstances are just the trials of the faithfulness of GOD'S children. Let it be known only that, though GOD may be in a distinct position, there is, according to Dr. Whately, no distinction in the person of the FATHER and the SON. What may be the duty of the clergy in such a case I leave to themselves: of that of a Christian I can have no doubts.
" 0 GOD, to what a pass is Thy Church come, when those who govern and should feed it are found, even where the truth seems specially professed, deniers of that upon which Thy whole glory rests, even the person and therefore the mission of Thy SON, who loved it and gave Himself for it! O LORD, regard Thy people, and give them faithfulness and wisdom to do that which becometh Thy saints for the glory of Thy Name, and acknowledgment of Thy love through JESUS, Thy sent One, come in the flesh that, according to that which is given them, all men should honor the SON even as they honor the FATHER by one SPIRIT. Amen.
" I am, Sir, faithfully yours,
" J.N.D."
Some twenty-five years later, a heterodox teacher with whom Darby also dealt very faithfully, remarked, " J.N.D. writes with a pen in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other." But it was only fundamental error which roused his deepest grief and indignation, his patience with honest blunderers being proverbial.