the distance, hazily and indistinctly no doubt at this time, but still none the less really there.
The original ostensible ground of fellowship Mr. Darby explains in letters written to a clergyman in 1839, as follows:—
“Whenever the first great truth of redemption,—in a word, whenever Christ has received a person, we would receive him. That false brethren may creep in unawares is possible. If the Church be spiritual, they will soon be made apparent; but as our table is the Lord’s and not our’s, we receive all that the Lord has received, all who have fled as poor sinners for refuge to the hope set before them, and rest not in themselves, but in Christ as their hope.****You say would you receive a Roman Catholic? If a Roman Catholic really extolled Jesus, as a Saviour, and his one sacrifice of himself, as the sole putting away of sin, he would have ceased to hold the error and delusion by which the enemy, has misled some souls, who are still I would trust precious to Jesus; he would cease to be a Roman Catholic, in the evil sense of the word, and on those terms only could he be with us. I repeat then, that we receive all who are on the foundation, and reject and put away all error by the word of God, and the help of his ever blessed, ever living Spirit.”[1]
Here Mr. Darby expresses himself in language that most fully bears out all that any have ever asserted, of the original and catholic ground on which “Brethren” commenced their blessed service to the Church at large—a service designed to be so loving, so gracious in its dealing with the consciences of others, and in its bearing towards the weaknesses, infirmities, and differences of our brethren, that all might be won over to walk in unsectarian harmony and love, as heirs of the same glory, and partakers of the blessings of the same infinite atonement. Happy would it have been had Mr. Darby carried out the lesson he thus sought to teach others.
Notwithstanding these catholic views thus forcibly expressed, it became increasingly manifest in Plymouth, that sectarianism and partizanship were becoming developed with fearful rapidity, so that, while knowledge had increased, that deepest and most humbling of all knowledge—self-knowledge—had not; for where there is that, there will ever be found that growth in grace which, as it knows how much there is to be borne with in him who possesses it, makes it easy, for him to bear with others as need may require. When there is rottenness beneath the surface, and a falsity within, that denies the outward profession, matters for a while may go on externally, as if all were sound; but, sooner or later, the Allwise God will allow circumstances to arise which will break up the surface, and shew what
- ↑ See Mr. Darby’s correspondence with Rev. J. Kelly, p.p. 61, 64.
