In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, several books were published on the subject of prophecy, particularly relating to the restoration of Israel and the glory of the reign of the Messiah. One appeared in 1812, written by a South American Roman Catholic priest under the pen name of Ben-Ezra. It was translated from Spanish into English in 1827 and stirred up great interest in the subject of prophecy. Numerous books and magazine articles appeared on the subject. Meetings for the study of prophecy were held in the house of H. Drummond at Albury in Surrey and later in Powerscourt Castle, in Wicklow, Ireland.
They were attended at first by many clergymen as well as laymen. Attention was focused on the end of the present dispensation, and the cry was raised, “Behold, the bridegroom; go forth to meet him” (Matt. 25:66And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. (Matthew 25:6) JND).
The unfolding of prophetic truth brought out the great distinction between Israel’s place, destined for earthly blessing, who, as a nation, are yet to have the chief place on earth in the Millennium, and, on the other hand, the Church’s place, which belongs to heaven, seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, but while on earth, sharing the place of her still rejected Head and awaiting the moment of His coming to give her her assigned place in the glory with Himself.
In the winter of 1827-1828 four Christian men, who had for some time felt that none of the denominations of Christendom worshipped according to scriptural order, agreed, after much prayer, to come together on Lord’s Day morning in order to break bread according to the Lord’s own request.
The names of the four men were Darby, Cronin, Bellett and Hutchinson. They held their first meeting in the house of the last-named in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin. Others soon joined them, and at the end of 1829 or early 1830, they hired a large auction room in Aungier Street. Lord Congleton (then J. Parnell) was at that time among their number. They were deeply conscious of the Lord’s approval and were richly blessed. Not only did they celebrate the Lord’s supper, but they gathered together to read the Scriptures, relying entirely on the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide and teach them. In these meetings, they met simply as brethren, without pastor, official elder or chairman, but according to the Lord’s word, “One is your Master [Instructor], even Christ; and all ye are brethren” (Matt. 23:88But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. (Matthew 23:8)). At the beginning, it appears all were not entirely clear as to the importance of this principle, but experience taught them that the more they relied on the Holy Spirit, the greater their liberty and blessing. This little company abandoned any form of human organization. To the human mind it seems unworkable, and indeed it is only workable where the Lord’s authority and the Spirit’s power are recognized and submitted to. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, however, they fully owned and made full room for teachers and evangelists whose gift was evident, not by ordination, but by the gift of the Spirit. How this worked out in the early Church is readily seen from 1 Corinthians 14. An amazing amount and variety of gift manifested itself as their numbers grew. By means of lectures, tracts, pamphlets and larger works, a rich harvest of sound teaching, garnered from a study of the Word of God, spread throughout the length and breadth of Christendom. Thousands who never joined the Brethren, as they were called, benefited from their teaching.
Another important feature with them was their allegiance to the Holy Scriptures. As one of them has written, “All human statements of truth must be inferior to Scripture, even when drawn from it.”
Meetings multiplied. They arose all over Britain and in the United States, the West Indies and the British countries overseas. On the continent of Europe, they were to be found in France, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain and Russia. There were meetings even among the Copts in Egypt. When brethren from England began to visit other lands, they found that God had gone before and prepared the way by stirring up His people and putting similar exercises into their hearts, so that in many places companies were already found breaking bread in the same, simple way, and such companies readily received the truth ministered to them.
Early in the nineteenth century, there arose in Geneva a small company of Christians meeting on simple lines, prominent among whom was Bost, who had been influenced by the Moravians. In 1816 Robert Haldane came to Geneva and effected the remarkable revival of which an account has been given. The Holy Spirit used him to kindle a fire which spread from Geneva, where he worked, to Waadland, Berne, Basle, Zurich and even to St. Gallen. There was much opposition, but the work of God spread far and wide, and those who got light and help through him carried the gospel into other countries on the Continent. Haldane’s work was to revive the basic truth of the gospel. The further light followed. On October 5, 1817, they celebrated the Lord’s supper in its scriptural simplicity, apart from the organized Churches. All present experienced a rich blessing and were encouraged by a sense of the Lord’s presence. They said they wished to go on with the Bible in their hands, with no preconceived plans, having the Word of God as their only rule and the Holy Spirit as their only Leader. Those who took this path were simple, undistinguished Christians. When J. N. Darby went to Switzerland in 1837, he found such believers meeting on the same principles as he and others had begun upon ten years earlier in England, and he gladly associated himself with them as a brother in Christ. From Geneva he went on to Lausanne and other places, encouraging the saints and being encouraged among them. His remarkable knowledge of the Scriptures and outstanding gift as a teacher helped greatly to build these little companies up in the truth. His ministry was printed in Basle, and from there it reached Germany, where also little companies of Christians were meeting on very similar lines. The work spread to Jubingen and Stuttgart through Peter Nippel, who had been deeply impressed by Darby’s writings published in Basle in 1843. Tracts and booklets of Darby’s were also printed in Duesseldorf, and a periodical, The Expectation of the Church, was produced. This literature was printed in such large quantities that cartloads were taken to the meetings, and people filled their pockets with them. William Darby, J. N. Darby’s brother, was resident in Duesseldorf at this time and, together with von Posek, was very active in ministering among Christians in the whole of that area. G. V. Wigram also visited the gatherings.
Karl Brockhaus and others were busy at this time in Elberfeld and the environs in spreading the gospel. He and his coadjutors issued a magazine called Der Saemann of which four thousand copies were issued periodically. In the course of twelve months, they held 160 Bible readings in 70 different places and distributed 217,000 tracts.
Karl Brockhaus (b. 1822) was an outstanding servant marked not only by evangelical gift but by warm love and a shepherd spirit. He was converted as a young man of twenty-three and started Bible readings in a schoolroom. When he got J. N. Darby’s writings, he was deeply impressed. This led to an invitation to Darby to come and minister to them. The companies meeting with Brockhaus in Germany soon became associated with the brethren in England, and the valuable literature of such writers as Darby, Bellett, Mackintosh and others was translated into German. Other names could, of course, be added, but space forbids and excess of detail would make the account too tedious. J. N. Darby undertook, with the collaboration of von Posek, the translation of the whole Bible into German. The result was a very faithful and accurate version of the Scriptures.
These activities had their counterpart in other Continental countries, in America and in the newly developing British Colonies. Companies meeting simply as brethren were springing up in almost every land where the Christian testimony had spread. J. N. Darby, writing to Professor Tholuck in 1855, says, “Gospel preaching in Switzerland and England has led to the formation of some meetings among emigrants to the United States and Canada; the evangelization of Negroes has led to others in Jamaica and Demerara.” We have before us interesting accounts of the spread of the gospel and the formation of such companies in Jamaica and in Barbados, where to this day there are many happy companies of dark-skinned brethren meeting in warm fellowship with others of European origin.
Twenty years had scarcely passed since the little meeting began in Dublin, when Satan launched a subtle attack which divided the brethren into two camps. Evil doctrine concerning the Lord Jesus had been introduced by a leader named Newton in the large Plymouth meeting. The doctrine itself was universally condemned, but it raised serious practical issues as to fellowship, which came to a head in the large gathering at Bethesda, Bristol, where Mueller and Craik were leaders. J. N. Darby felt that in such a serious matter there could be no compromise with evil and that the principle of separation demanded withdrawal, not only from the author of the heresy, but from all who had links with him. George Mueller, whose influence was very considerable, opposed this, and those who followed him became known as Open Brethren. This sad division greatly weakened the testimony of the brethren to the truth of the one Body, and it was, alas, not the only occasion when the enemy succeeded in dividing their ranks. To deal adequately with the principles involved and the underlying moral issues would be beyond the scope of this history. These were dealt with in a pamphlet written at the time by a spiritual and highly respected brother, as well as by J. N. Darby himself.
The following extracts are from a pamphlet published in 1875 by an anonymous minister in Edinburgh. After citing the works of the principal brethren and enlarging on their value, he wrote:
“It is written by Divine Inspiration, ‘When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him’ (Isa. 59:1919So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. (Isaiah 59:19)). Of late years the enemy has been coming in like a flood and where is there anything in these lands that can be called the lifting up ‘a standard against him,’ except it be the intensely spiritual movement and thoroughly Biblical writings of the ‘Brethren’? For, drawing only from the Holy Scripture, have they not displayed a banner, because of the truth, against every great evil that has come in for the past forty years? Are they not the present-day standard-bearers of a recovered Christianity?”
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“But, when you can point to a set of Christians, living among us, who, at the cost of all that flesh holds dear, have dared to stand up for apostolic Christianity, pure and simple in doctrine and worship and practice, you point to the real successors of the primitive Christians, who are the hope, not only of retaining true and vital Christianity in the midst of us, but perhaps of preserving, for a while, the country from decadence and destruction, should the dispensation continue, for such saints are not only the evangelists of the world’s heathenism, but the ‘salt of the earth’ (Matt. 5:1313Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. (Matthew 5:13)).”
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“Were we to inquire where this wonderful evangelist from America (who has been so prominently used in the present religious awakening) had the full, clear gospel of God’s love to sinners, as such, which he preaches, would he not own that he got it by hearing it preached by a brother evangelist, and then more solidly from the writings of such ‘Brethren’ as C. H. Mackintosh and Charles Stanley or J. N. Darby himself, at whose feet he sat, not so very long ago, in the city of Chicago, when by his request meetings for Bible readings were held by him for some weeks, often twice a day? Subsequently he found deliverance from the law by reading Dr. Mackay’s Grace and Truth, a book which tells plainly of its author’s obligations to ‘Brethren.’”
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“Moreover, is it not also the case that, at the present hour, hundreds of godly clergymen and ministers are feeding their own souls at the rich feast provided for them in the writings of ‘Brethren’ and the people to whom they preach are reaping the benefit of these private studies? By means of millions of their tracts, ‘Brethren’ are also carrying salvation, liberty, peace and joy to tens of thousands who never would be reached by their living voice and who may never be associated with them in corporate fellowship.”
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“For a very long time now, the new wine has been bursting the ‘old bottles’ and running out. The best of the saints of God are bursting the ‘old bottles’ of denominationalism and running out, and why not make sure of having them put into the new bottle of the Church of God, that both bottle and wine may be preserved (Matt. 9:1717Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved. (Matthew 9:17))? Nobody believes in denominationalism but the most prejudiced and ignorant of men; all Christians know and admit that sects and divisions are, to say the least, of the flesh and not of God. Why then not have done with them? But these are the ‘Churches,’ so-called. If we are Christ’s, we are members of His body and should belong to no other. Where would this land us now? Do we shrink back, dislike, despise? Let us take care that we do not fight against Christ in defense of our ‘ism.’ Why not discard all our ‘isms’ in order to follow the Lord and His Word and be on the ground of His Church? Why not let God’s Holy Spirit gather us all to Christ only in the unity of His body (as all believers were in the days of the apostles) and belong to nothing ecclesiastically in time which we shall not belong to in eternity?”
These words were written more than one hundred years ago, when the movement was about fifty years old and many of those whom the Holy Spirit had stirred up and so signally and powerfully used were still alive. It is not to glorify any body of Christians that we reproduce these words. It would be utterly wrong to do so. If they were deserved, the glory is due to God alone. Our object in this work is simply to present a faithful picture of every divine movement we have been able to trace in the Church’s history, for the glory of God and the exercise and encouragement of the Christians of our day. A recovery of the truth was effected in those days by the sovereign action of the Holy Spirit. Many Christians all over the world answered to it and, in obedience to God’s Word, met in the simplicity which characterized the early Christians. The light and truth which shone out have permeated Christendom, and many have benefited by it, in the same way as the Reformation recovery benefited the whole Church.