There are comparatively few among the millions directly or indirectly influenced spiritually by the life and labors of John Nelson Darby who have any clear perception of this man whom Professor Francis Newman described in Phases of Faith as " a most remarkable man, who rapidly gained an immense sway over me."
One Oxford man indeed styled him " the Tertullian of these last days " from the many controversies in which he was engaged during his long lifetime.
Tertullian, who was the younger contemporary of Ireneaus Bishop of Lyons in the latter part of the second century, was a noted controversialist; and the Dictionary of National Biography ascribes his character to Darby almost as though it was what chiefly characterized him. This is a mistake, for although his many polemical writings may give a superficial appearance to this, yet controversy was not his forte. True he was often involved in it, first with a bishop, then with an archbishop, and frequently with such brethren as are aptly and wittily depicted in the Preface to the Authorized Version in its address to King James as " self-conceited brethren who run their own ways, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil."
Since it is only a truism that every movement in the history of mankind has had a personal leader, and that when the hour strikes the man appears, so it was when what an American writer called A Divine Movement began in the first quarter of the last century. This movement commonly designated " Brethren," frequently miscalled " Plymouth Brethren," found a living, forceful, personal leader to voice, lead and extend it as far as a man could, in the subject of this volume. For over half a century of active unwearied service he diligently taught and practiced the truth that, whatever the prevailing ecclesiastical disorders, there still remains the duty and privilege for every member of CHRIST'S body strenuously to maintain the unity of the SPIRIT in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:33Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:3)).
His conception of this " body," the Church, noble and sublime, differs widely from that advocated by many in high ecclesiastical positions, yet cannot fail to appeal to the spiritual mind. He says, " The Church... a lowly, heavenly body... has no position on earth at all, as it was in the beginning-suffering as its Head did, unknown and well known-an unearthly witness of heavenly things on earth."
The social and religious conditions prevailing in English-speaking Christendom during the Georgian period present a very gloomy picture unrelieved save by the gleam of the Evangelical revival. In the year 1800, however, two most remarkable men of the nineteenth century were born who, it is admitted by all conversant with the so-called religious world, left indelible marks upon the face of Christendom. One of these was EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, the other JOHN NELSON DARBY. They both became clergymen of the Established Church, and lived lives of unworldly piety; each striving, although in wholly different ways, to realize a great ideal (the visible unity of the Church of GOD, an ideal still unrealized, but yet confessedly a great ideal). It is noteworthy that both ended their labors within a few months of each other, Darby dying in the April of 1882, and Pusey in the September of that same year.
A writer of this period speaks of the clergy as " careless of dispensing the bread of life to their flocks, preaching at best but a carnal and soul-benumbing morality, and trafficking in the souls of men by receiving money for discharging the pastoral office in parishes where they did not so much as look on the faces of the people more than once a year "; and of a typical clergyman, further remarks, " He really had no very lofty aims, no theological enthusiasm. If I were closely questioned, I should be obliged to confess that he felt no serious alarms about the souls of his parishioners, and would have thought it a mere loss of time to talk in a doctrinal and awakening manner to old Feyther Taft,' or even to. Chad Cranage the blacksmith. If he had been in the habit of speaking theoretically, he would perhaps have said that the only healthy form religion could take in such minds was that of certain dim but strong emotions, suffusing themselves as a hallowing influence over the family affections and neighborly duties. He thought the custom of baptism more important than its doctrine, and that the religious benefits the peasant drew from the church where his father worshipped and the sacred piece of turf where he lay buried, were but slightly dependent on a clear understanding of the Liturgy or the sermon. Clearly, the Rector was not what is called in these days an ` earnest ' man: he was fonder of Church history than of divinity, and had much more insight into men's characters than interest in their opinions; he was neither laborious, nor obviously self-denying, nor very copious in almsgiving, and his theology, you perceive, was lax." Another Oxford clerical writer of repute observes: " The churches and worship bore in general too conclusive testimony to a frozen indifference."
Amongst the Dissenting communities, too, there existed at that time a cold exclusiveness almost amounting to Pharisaism; their hope lay in political reform. The whole professing Church, wise and foolish virgins alike, apparently slumbered and slept. The Reform Bill, however, had a manifest and powerful effect; churchmen could not fail to see that their house was in danger. Then what became known as the Anglo-Catholic school within the borders of the Establishment began to realize the necessity of resting their claims against Radical encroachment on Apostolic succession, saving ordinances, and imposing forms, to which Dissent had no pretension, and in fact repudiated.
And as at Creation when darkness was upon the face of the deep, the SPIRIT of GOD moved upon the face of the waters, so now the hearts of believers in the various denominations were stirred up to study the Scriptures, and, as ever, in so doing found light pouring into their minds, upon which some sought to act.
Others, alas 1 like Dr. Pusey, instead of being humbled by Scriptural light, obscured it by forms and human imaginings, imported mainly from traditions in the writings of the early fathers, thereby sowing baneful seeds of error, which have since become so abundantly fruitful in the Established Church and her daughters. Disgusted with the sloth and apathy of normal Christendom, these did not so much search the Scriptures, as insist on the need of an interpreter for them. They ignored (though unintentionally) the Divine Instructor, Whose Special mission it is to reveal and explain the things of CHRIST to His people. So, practically substituting for the present energy of the HOLY SPIRIT the confusions of the so-called " Fathers," it is little wonder they rapidly strayed more and more from the truth to masses, confessionals, crucifixes, purgatory, and in some instances, to holy water stoups and extreme unction, until, as Charles Kingsley observes, " all the appliances of religion to deliver a man out of the hands of a merciful GOD " were speedily requisitioned. Yet their main object of visible unity, based on the principles of catholic corruption after the Apostles had departed, and on medieval development was, in their own eyes, but very partially realized, and even yet to the outsider (although more than a century has elapsed since the famous Assize sermon of Keble which marked the outward commencement of the Oxford movement) still appears chimerical.
Thousands of earnest, and some pious, souls were however enslaved within the bonds of a legal tyranny more irksome and insufferable than that of Judaism. Some leaders may have been sincere, but mistaken sincerity only proves too well the subtlety of the enemy of souls, and the folly of leaning to one's own understanding in the things of GOD. Dr. Pusey and his friends sought to establish a restoration of united Christendom, ignoring the palpable fact of its departure from GOD and His Word and SPIRIT, and its ruin doctrinally, ecclesiastically and morally. Dr. Pusey lived a self-denying life, and suffered much at the hands of his bishop too; and his firm stand for the inspiration and infallibility of the word of GOD is particularly marked in his " Daniel " and " Minor Prophets."
John Nelson Darby, even before Dr. Pusey came prominently into notice as a leading Tractarian, had been attracted strongly by the same system of religious ideas as Keble, Newman, Pusey and others of that school. He says: " I know the system. I knew it and walked in it years before Dr. Newman, as I learn from his book, thought on the subject; and when Dr. Pusey was not heard of. I fasted in Lent so as to be weak in body at the end of it; ate no meat on weekdays-nothing till evening on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, then a little bread or nothing; observed strictly the weekly fasts too. I went to my clergyman always if I wished to take the Sacrament, that he might judge of the matter. I held Apostolic Succession fully, and the channels of grace to be there only. I held thus Luther and Calvin and their followers to be outside. I was not their judge, but I left them to the uncovenanted mercies of GOD. I searched with earnest diligence into the evidences of Apostolic Succession in England, and just saved their validity for myself and my conscience. The union of Church and State I held to be Babylonish, that the Church ought to govern itself, and that she was in bondage, but was the Church."