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9. Rome 10. Vaughan Family 11. Hardman - 7 Churches 12. Vaughans/Darbys |
13. Brooke 14. Walker 15. Newman • Previous |
| RESEARCH PAPER 9 |
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| Rome: Darby and the Roman Catholic Church |
Discovering that Darby's and John Henry Newman's time at Lincoln's Inn overlapped was a surprise. If they ever met during that time cannot – as of yet – be proven. Nevertheless Newman is interesting as a comparison. He would struggle with the attractions of the Roman Church later than Darby and later Darby would comment on that in his "Analysis of Dr. Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: With a Glance at the History of Popes, Councils, and the Church" in CWs volume 18. We can find much about what Darby himself went through in the "Analysis".
Darby writes:
. . ." I know pretty well, in theory and practice, what Romanism is". . .(CW18:145)
. . ."I pity Dr. Newman; I feel his difficulties; I have felt them myself; I do not judge him. . .In many things I agree; many of his thoughts I have gone over in my own mind." (CW18:158)
Darby said that he had always believed in God, but that it was the beauty in creation that gave him a feeling of responsibility towards Him, (L2:466).
This is of interest because Darby accuses Newman of being influenced by "sense perception":
"The secret of the course of Dr. Newman's mind is this - it is sensuous;* and so is Romanism.
*No reader must confound this with sensual." (CW18:145)
. . ."Romanism. . .is a sensuous religion, fills the imagination with gorgeous ceremonies, noble buildings, fine music, stately processions. It feeds it with legends and the poetry of antiquity; but it gives no holy peace to the conscience - ease it may, but not peace;" (CW18:152)
"His [Newman's] imagination was at work on new scenes naturally enough. 'The sight of so many great places, venerable shrines, and noble churches, much impressed my imagination,' he tells us. He heard singing in a country church at six o'clock, and his heart thus also was touched. Now, a religious congregation singing, when heard from without, has this effect - touches deeply the religious imagination where it exists. It could not have been anything really spiritual in his mind; for he did not know what they were singing". . . (CW18:177)
Darby in his Greek Interlinear New Testament mentions coming to a saving faith in Christ either in June or July of 1820 or 1821. Why can he roughly pin-point it? In any case, it was during his time a Lincoln's Inn.
His upbringing at home did not bring him to a saving faith. His time at Westminster School (which involved quite a bit of occupation with Scripture - as my Westminster related research seems to indicate) did not bring him to that point, nor his time at Trinity College.
Darby wrote about Newman: "The circle of university affections is most powerful, formed as they are, just when the heart is fresh and growing to manhood and amiable; and the reference to them is one of the attractive points of Dr. Newman's book,". . . (CW18:145)
If Darby can make this observation it is probably due to his having experienced it himself. But who belonged to his own "circle of university affections"?
Darby's entire upbringing was strongly anti-Catholic. (His relatives on his mother's side were Unitarians, but if they had any influence has not yet been determined.) He was taught and trained to be anti-Catholic. And yet he became attracted to Rome in this strongly anti-Catholic setting after his conversion - at a time when being Catholic was not popular. The Oxford Movement was years away.
("Yet opposition to the church of Rome was part of the theology of the church of England divines, and none in office in the church of England could be otherwise than in hostility to the church of Rome,". . . (CW18:238))
Where did this attraction come from? Who was involved? It is difficult for me to believe it was only through books and literature. William Henry Darby was Catholic for a time, but the circumstances involved have eluded me so far. (He fluctuated a bit: Church of England, Roman Catholic, Plymouth Brother and finally Church of Ireland.) JND writes of trying to persuade WHD of Rome's errors after he himself had come free of Catholic attractions. He does not mention WHD as a previous influence (which might have been possible nevertheless, I just don't have evidence for it). Who did Darby know and converse with in London? Newton describes traveling to London with Darby many years later and making visits. It would be of great interest to know who these people were. Family? Friends from his Lincoln's Inn time?
Darby was converted, but where should he go? Should he stick with the Church he had been baptized into? Apparently this was NOT an obvious conclusion for him to come to:
"From the first Oxford influences he [Newman] came under, he had a horror of Protestantism. I understand that horror. How earnestly, when I was in the state I have referred to elsewhere in these pages, I should have disowned, and did disown, that name! I looked for the church. Not having peace in my soul, nor knowing yet where peace is, I too, governed by a morbid imagination, thought much of Rome, and its professed sanctity, and catholicity, and antiquity - not of the possession of divine truth and of Christ myself. Protestantism met none of these feelings, and I was rather a bore to my clergyman by acting on the rubrics. I looked out for something more like reverend antiquity. I was really much in Dr. Newman's state of mind. But such a feeling as to Protestantism is shallow, and little founded on fact." (CW18:145-146)
(Darby's remark that "The aristocratic mind tends to popery; the popular to infidelity. Ecclesiastical authorities are powerless against the former; they are the chief abettors of the latter." (CW18:152) is of interest as regards himself. Though not of the aristocracy his family did belong to the gentry.)
"I turn more immediately to Dr. Newman's book. Let me be forgiven speaking for a moment of myself, as what I say has a bearing on these points. I know the system. I knew it and walked in it years before Dr. Newman (as I learn from this 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 week days - 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." (CW18:156)
The above is well known and has often been quoted. Who the clergyman is Darby "always" went to depends on the Church he attended. There are four possible Churches and I have been able to find out who was officiating there at each one at the time in question (1819-1822), but no references to Darby have turned up (yet).
The Church of England never really sat easy with Darby - even if he became known as a High Churchman and spoke of his love for it. (Dissent might have appealed to him at one time, but he later abhorred it.) He did not become ordained because he felt he had to in the sense of a calling. He followed the advice of others and not an inner conviction.
Darby accused Newman of being influenced by too many wrong things, among them "antiquity", but he himself had viewed that as an important criteria.
A definite Catholic influence on Darby at this time was Ignatius. He writes:
"And why does he [Newman] take Ignatius? And why do all who love the system Dr. N. has followed? Why did I myself delight in it, found my thoughts on him? Because he already liked and had adopted the system found in his published writings, not from any real, ascertained authority in Ignatius." (CW18:182)
Darby defends his initial attraction to Rome with:
"Being disposed towards Rome is nothing uncommon or surprising; but souls are kept, often almost unconsciously, by some truth which guards them. I was, especially by Hebrews 9 and 10." (CW18:185)
Hebrews 9 and 10 is something he sites several times as leading him away from Rome:
"What saved me then, I think, from being a Romanist was the ninth and tenth of Hebrews. I could not for priesthood, which I believed in, practically give up our great High Priest and His work. What delivered me from this whole system was the truth. The word of God had its own, its divine, authority over my soul, and maintained it through grace. I was looking for the true church honestly but in the dark. I believe in the church now, but I know it in its reality only as the living body of Christ united to Him by the Holy Ghost." (CW18:156-157)
Darby's "Familiar Conversations on Romanism - First Conversation: Faith is in God and His Word, Not in the Church" in CWs 18 very probably reflects much of Darby's own experience. For this reason I quote from it at length:
p. 276 "N*. Well, James, I hear you have been visited by some Roman Catholics, and are in some perplexity."
"James. I have, and they spoke very fair; and I cannot deny that I do not see clear. Christ surely left a church on earth, and some authority to guide us poor people, and instruct us in the right way. It is a great comfort to feel assured that one is of the true church that Christ founded. And, after I had been reflecting awhile on what they said, I began to feel that I have got no proof that the Bible is the word of God."
"N*. And did you ever doubt it before, James?"
"James. No, I cannot say I did; I have always believed it to be the word of God; and, though I am afraid I have sadly neglected it many a year. . .But, since I have got more serious and anxious in my mind, I have found the Bible bring trouble into my conscience. I hardly know where I am with God - it condemns me: I see there is goodness and wonderful grace in Jesus; but then I have no peace in myself, and now I see there is a deal I do not understand, and I should like to know the bottom of it."
"Bill M. (my neighbour, who has turned Catholic), says he has never been so happy in his life, his soul never got rest till now. He never thought much about religion, it is true, . . . but he says he knows some who never get a minute's rest in their souls, that were always seeking it, till they found it in the true church. It was he that asked me how I knew it was the Bible; and if the true church had not kept the Bible and given it, who could say it was the word of God? and how did I, an ignorant man, know it was the word of God, as I called it? And that has dashed me uncommonly, because, though I never doubted it a moment before, and saw in infidels that there was no good nor godliness in their ways, yet I felt I had no proof to give, and what am I to do? I know it speaks of a church that Christ would build on the rock, and I think if that would give me certainty it would be a great rest to me". . . . . .
p. 278 "N*. The word of God, James, carries its own authority in the heart of him in whom it has wrought. And, mark this, if it has not wrought in a man's heart, though all the churches in the world should accredit him, that man is lost. If they believe it to be the word of God, why not take it and see what it says? They dare not: it is too plain, it condemns their whole system. For instance, you know that it is said, "Where remission of these (sins and iniquities) is, there is no more offering for sin" (Heb. 10: 13). Now their whole system depends upon there being still offerings for sin. The very way a Roman Catholic is described is - he goes to Mass. Now the Mass is an offering for the sins of the living and the dead. And when the word says there is no more offering for sin, and the most important distinctive point in their doctrine, and the keystone of the system they belong to, is, that there is still an offering for sin, it is easy to understand why they try to shake your confidence in the word, or to make you think that you cannot understand it. It is because it is very plain indeed, for the poorest, that they do not like it." . . .
p. 279 "It is said (Heb. 9: 25), "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once, in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And, as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Mark the words "ONCE" and "bear the sins." Does Christ bear sins in the Roman Catholic Mass? If not, it is a new way of getting forgiveness, which sets aside the unspeakably gracious but heart-bowing way in which God has wrought salvation out for us, namely, the dreadful but infinitely precious sufferings of His own Son. If Christ does suffer in the Mass, He is not glorified at the right hand of God. True Christianity and the doctrine of the Mass cannot go together. And the more you examine chapters 9 and 10 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the more you will see how the truth of God is set aside by the Mass. For the apostle is shewing the value of Christ's offering because it was only once, in contrast with the Jewish offerings which were repeated. Those offerings, he says, were a remembrance of sins, brought them to mind; the sins were still there, or why would the offerings for sin not have ceased to be offered?". . .
p. 280 "And note, this repetition of it, if I admit it, denies the lasting, perfect, efficacy of the offering He Himself made. For if it be lasting and perfect, why repeat it? My objection to the Roman Catholic system on this head is that it is built on a pretended offering which Christ does not offer, in which no blood is shed, in which Christ does not suffer, in which Christ does not bear sins, which is therefore utterly worthless; but which, by the pretension to offer Christ again, denies the abiding efficacy of Christ's one real offering of Himself. What a fraud of Satan's, to be sure, it is!" . . .
p. 290 "N*. . .You see what forgiveness is, but you have yet to learn more fully what divine righteousness is - what it is to be made the righteousness of God in Christ. You will find that there is a fulness in the deliverance of which God has made you partaker, of which you are hardly yet quite aware. You see that there is a perfect forgiveness, and that the blood of Christ has blotted out all the wretched sinful fruits of your old nature; that He has borne your sins and died for you as a sinner, and that all that you are as such is done away by His death, in God's sight; for sin in the flesh has been condemned in the sacrifice He has made for sin, as well as sins atoned for. But, besides that, Christ is risen, and has taken a new place as an accepted Man, who as such is God the Father's delight, and this is your place before God. You are accepted in Him; as well as the sins of your old man, and all its guilt, put away. He has been raised again for our justification."
"And this connects itself, you see, with a new life in us, the power of which has been displayed in His resurrection. It was divine power, no doubt, which was displayed in that, but in the way of the energy of life, and that life is made ours in Christ. We are quickened together with Him, and raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. We are made the righteousness of God in Him". . .
Of course the above was written long after Darby's own experiences in London and after his riding accident. It is written with the insight of later years, but I feel we can still find traces of what he went through in it. His coming free of Rome's attraction was one thing; the Word of God gaining "complete ascendancy" over him was an other and took place in connection with his riding accident years later.
A possible Catholic influence on Darby could have been the Roman Catholic barrister Charles Butler (1750-1832) - whom Maitland apparently greatly admired. Below is information I was sent in connection with my inquiries regarding him:
"Butler, who was half-French (and fully conversant with Continental Catholic thought), was lay Secretary of the Catholic Committee in England and Wales from 1786 until the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829. In 1831, shortly before his death, he was made a King's Counsel (an office which had been denied him by law until the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act) and a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, to which he had been admitted in 1775. For most of his career he practised as a conveyancer (that being the highest legal to which he could aspire as a Catholic) and was reckoned to be the finest such practitioner for much of his career. Butler was also steeped in the Scriptures and published on the subject. One of his kinsmen was Charles Plowden (1743-1821), Provincial Superior of the English Jesuits from 1817-1821. Though Plowden was based at the Jesuits' headquarters at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, he was regularly in London, visiting Fr Edward Scott, SJ (1776-1836), the London agent of Stonyhurst College from 1817-1832, and Plowden could well have met Darby on a visit to Butler. Certainly, Darby seems to have been heavily influenced by Jesuit literature on pre-trib. rapture and these influences could have come via Butler and Plowden and/or Scott."
(Someone else Darby may have known was Mark Aloysius Tierny. He was ordained a priest in 1818 and became associated with Lincoln's Inns Fields in 1819.)
Darby writes in CW18:185
. . ."There was no motive for [Newman] keeping aloof from Rome, but the pope's being Antichrist; which for my part, however anti-Christian he may be, I do not believe."
Since when did Darby NOT believe that the Pope was Antichrist? It was a common belief among Protestants at the time.
The Catholic influence may go further than suspected. Who did Darby converse with during his Catholic phase? How much teaching did he hear? These questions become important for the development of Darby's prophetic views later. There are very many Catholic (Jesuit) elements involved in it. Darby's view is not Ribera's, nor Bellarmine's, or Lacunza's, but there are just too many corresponding elements when compared with each other that "chance" does not seem to be an honest explanation.
All the "elements" were there in the 1820s and 1830s: the concept of ruin, of dispensations, of a Israel/Church distinction, of a rapture (even though only a 45 day gap, but nevertheless, a gap), the days as days and not years in Daniel - and so on. It was all there. Darby just brought it all together in a way that seemed to be right.
I do not believe that Darby took over a Catholic prophetic scheme, but I do believe he DID get impulses from them and very many other sources: Wolff, Irving, MacDonald, Tweedy and so on. At some point everything came together and the individual contributions resulted in a "whole". To look for a single influence on the formation of Darby's views or a single event is wrong. I am convinced that they are the result of very many different ones over a longer period of time. I plan to go into these in depth elsewhere.
Darby was careful, this for maybe many reasons. But when dealing with Newman he often comes back to the point of honesty:
. . . "Now, on so solemn a subject as what is the true religion, to act week after week on others without knowing the true religion oneself, I call moral levity of the worst kind. That he [Newman] was not at rest he tells us. . . Now, I do think an earnest, serious, conscientious man would not have done this; a modest man would not, he would have waited till he saw what the truth was himself, till he was at the end of his journey. And why did he go on when he knew he had not come to any settled conclusion? Because he had immense confidence in himself. He never was led to distrust his own convictions (that is, himself - his own mind), though they were changing every day; he was on his "journey." This is what I call moral levity and self-confidence. (CW18:170)
"Dr. Newman scarcely even excuses himself here; if he does, it is only for guilt in his vain confidence, so far as he had strong persuasions in 1832, which he has since given up. I do not blame him for giving up what he thought wrong. I blame him for lightly pretending to reform and rebuild the Anglican body, that is, to form a church as it should be, when he had not searched the grounds on which he did it; when he knew he was not at rest but on journey, as he has told us, and doing it in a free and easy way, and, I must say, with some effrontery, telling us that he had "a lounging, free and easy way" in the matter. Was this God-fearing?" (CW18:182-183)
I think the above may be helpful to understand why Darby took so long to come out publicly with his views. He took longer to reach his conclusions because he was still "on journey", but once reached he seems to have regarded them as nigh to "infallible". The seed may have been sown at the time of his riding accident, but it required a lot of "fertilising" and "watering" over a period of several years before the prophetic views he is credited for came out in full bloom. Many people contributed to this at different times and in different ways.
Darby knew and stood in contact with many persons who were prominent because of their involvement with the study of prophecy. He had connections to people involved with the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Among the Jews. Joseph Wolff was in London while Darby was at Lincoln's Inn. Darby may have met him in Dublin in 1826 (see my previous mail). Where did Wolff get his views on prophecy from? (He had initially been Roman Catholic.) Darby knew Charles Simeon personally and visited him (CW10:133). (Who did he visit in Cambridge when he relates that he went to Cambridge and Oxford in 1830?)
All the important books, all the important people, were accessible to Darby.
Darby's library sold at auction after his death is of great interest. Listed in it is Cave's "Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria" in 2 volumes (edition from 1740-1743). Cave wrote of the ruin of the Church.
Darby also had Cardinal Bellarmine's "Disputationes de Controversiis" in 4 volumes (edition from 1721). Bellarmine defended the futurist view of Ribera. (Darby refers to Bellarmine repeatedly in the CWs.)
Actually what interests me more are the titles NOT offered for sale. Darby's heirs were allowed to do with them as they saw fit. Some titles Darby mentions having in his Letters and CWs are not to be found in the list. Darby quoted from Lacunza/Irving's work - so he must have had it, but it is not in the auction list.
I have read somewhere that original letters were burned after Darby's death because they could be used to harm the correspondents in some way. Did this happen to some of Darby's books? Did they disappear into private libraries?
I feel that in some points what we don't know is more important than the information we have.
| RESEARCH PAPER 10 |
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| Vaughan Family |
My research is continuing and I'm concentrating on Joseph Wolff – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna – Hugh McNeile connections.
This has recently been sidetracked by some very helpful and useful information from a most kind historian in the States.
Page Top Research Paper 10 Top
| RESEARCH PAPER 11 |
|---|
| Hardman and the 'Seven Churches' |
Seven Churches in Revelation - Hardman 1830/1833
That Darby was well read is well known. That he was also well acquainted with papers dealing with prophecy in his time is evidenced by the following extracts from his Collected Writings:
CW 2 Reflections Upon the Prophetic Inquiry and the Views Advanced in it Dublin, 1829
Page 1: "It appears to me that, on the subject of prophecy (divisions on which now shame godliness), both those who hold and those who strenuously oppose views, which, for convenience' sake, we may call Millenarian, are deeply culpable. Many have written on one side and the other ignorant of each other's views," . . .
Page 2: "There are some observations I would make on these subjects, being convinced of the extreme precipitancy in which many have written upon them;" . . .
Page 4: "I confess I think the modern writers on prophecy justly chargeable with following their own thoughts hastily, and far too much removed from the control of Scripture". . .
Page 6: "The observations on the "resurrection from among the dead," published in the Christian Examiner (sound in criticism, and temperate in spirit, and calculated to be useful) point out an instance of the extreme carelessness with which bold statements are made by writers on these subjects: but having been there discussed, I omit it here.
There is an error of another kind, small in importance, perhaps, because of obvious correction, but illustrative of the way in which men inconsiderately make statements, when they fall in with their system, in the face of the simplest testimony of Scripture itself. In the third and fourth sermons on Daniel's vision of the four beasts and of the Son of man, by Mr. Irving, Zephaniah is stated to have prophesied before the carrying away of Israel captive; and it is assumed that they carried the book of that prophet to Nineveh, whereby Nineveh would know of its threatened judgments."
Page 7: "Again, in the translator's preliminary discourse to Ben-Ezra, we have (p. 55), ‘And to this effect I understand Rom. 8: 1, 'There is no condemnation' (krisis, i.e. judgment),’ etc. The word is katakrima without a single various reading in Wetstein or Griesbach. .
I shall quote but one concentrating sentence - but the observations will apply to the whole spirit shewn from p. 55-65 of this preface. . .I am not questioning here, be it remembered, the hope of Christ's coming, but Mr. Irving's statements respecting death. . . But it is the proper distinction of Christianity to have neutralised that power of death which Mr. Irving is preaching; ‘for the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law’; but both are dead to the believer in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour. . . As to the promise, Mr. Irving is writing against his own opinions; for, if he hold that Christ will come again, he believes that He will bring His saints with Him, so that they which are alive and remain have no preference."
Page 10: "But, perhaps, we are passing our subject. I shall therefore next take notice, merely with this view, of a commonly current work, ‘The Cry from the Desert,’ in the hope that it may lead to a more accurate examination of Scripture itself, before any of the writings of men upon this subject are adopted or rejected."
Page 19: "One subject yet remains on which I shall shortly touch. In a deeply interesting and, I think, profitable and timely sermon of Mr. Irving's, I found the following passage on false accusers. After stating that it meant the spirit of accusation generally, he says, in the ‘Last Days,’ p. 204, ‘It may therefore be laid down as a general principle of doctrine, that as the law of Christian life is love, so the law of Christian life when love is rejected or maltreated is forbearance, forgiveness, blessing, and intercession with God. As the office of the Christian Church on earth, is to preach, and to minister the grace of God unto all men; so also is it her office to make continual intercession before God for those who reject His offered grace, and trample under foot the blood of His covenant. And, of these two functions, the ministry of free grace, and the ministry of intercession for free grace rejected, if I were asked which is the more important, I would answer they are equally important to the integrity of love and the demonstration of divine grace; but of the two, that which is the highest and noblest exercise of love is surely intercession for him who hath spurned our love.’
"What shall we say after this, when we consider their own writings? They have come forward to the bar of public opinion (see ‘False Accuser,’ pp. 208-10), and avowedly (Page 20:) descended to fight their accusers on their own ground by public accusation. I feel unwillingly entirely to detail here the language and statements of the article on the Theology of the Periodical Journals. I think Mr. Malan right, and I think Mr. Erskine (though in many respects useful, and that extensively) is entirely wrong, if judged properly by Scripture, and wrong for pursuing his own thoughts without just subjection to Scripture, conceiving them new, when many, very many, have held them faithfully without mistake. . . Mr. Erskine, they say, wishes to state this highly important fact, namely, that by the incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, the whole creation (i.e., limiting the word 'creation' to this planet and the beings who inhabit it) is become beneficially interested in the work of Christ. This is certainly a very obscure and unintelligible proposition, and not Erskine's, nor representing his views. This fact, they say, he expresses by saying, ‘that the world is pardoned by the incarnation of Christ.’ But the proposition attributed to Mr. Erskine, whencesoever drawn, is not so expressed by him. He says that ‘All are pardoned - believers are a little flock.’" If he had said the world was pardoned (though I should have thought it an error) properly understood, I could have made an allowance for obscurity of expression; but he says all, i.e. all men, are pardoned; and on this the whole argument of the Morning Watch depends. The Reviewer was occupied with his own views, but there is not the slightest ground in Mr. Erskine's book for the position he takes. Righteousness is a scriptural as well as conventional term: I do not recollect that Mr. Erskine ever touches upon this, or uses the word. Scripture does; and this renders his whole view defective, however excellent as an individual."
"But the Morning Watch, prepossessed with its own views, and willing to have Mr. Erskine as a client or ally, has wholly passed by the whole question raised on his book, and not stated his assertions truly but as partisans, and stands itself on a level with the worst conduct of those it accuses. They themselves shall be witnesses."
Page 26: "Another subject is the restoration of the Jews to their own land. The calm and judicious Lowth, in a day when nothing but the force of Scripture influenced him, could not withhold assent from the directness of the testimonies to this."
CW2 On ‘Days’ Signifying ‘Years’ in Prophetic Language 1830
Page 32: "To the Editor of the Christian Herald
Sir,
The following remarks on the statements of Mr Maitland, in the Morning Watch, and of R.D., in the Christian Examiner, were written in short intervals of constant occupation."
Page 42: "I had read both of Mr. M.'s pamphlets or Inquiries. It is very possible my paper (in the Christian Herald) does not take adequate notice of them; Plymouth, Jan. 13, 1831"
The above are early dates: 1829, 1830 and 1831. The following letter from 1833 is of great interest:
Letters vol. 1
Page19: "Very dear brother, (J. L. Harris)"
Page 22: "Hardman, a dear brother in the Lord, a clergyman, was here lately, and he was speaking at large on the Seven Churches. I was not here, but this ground I hear he took. Sardis, the Reformation, on which, ‘if therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know,’ etc. Philadelphia, the separation of little bodies of believers with a little strength (there is comfort in that), but the Lord on their side, ‘I will keep them from,’ etc. ‘Behold I come quickly, hold fast that which thou hast,’ etc. And then the church left in its Laodicean state, its state generally now, at which He stands at the door and knocks - there being still some remaining perhaps amongst them, but He is at the door. What do you say to this? The result to the Laodicean church is to be spued out of His mouth. It is an important consideration in the present state of things. It commends itself morally to one's mind."
Page 24: "Yours most affectionately in the Lord.
I shall be rejoiced to stay awhile with you, when it pleases God to bring me back to Plymouth. I should probably go by London.
Limerick [received], August 19th, 1833."
(Alan Acheson wrote to me that Hardman was one of the Aughaval clergy who defected from the Establishment.)
The above is intriguing because it is so late. If Darby was so well acquainted with what was being written why is the above referred to as if it were an interesting new insight?
1833 is a late date for Darby to notice it because this teaching had appeared in 1830!
I quote from Froom's "The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers" volume 3:
Page 579: "The launching of The Christian Herald in 1830, in the very heart of Roman Catholic Ireland was quite a venture. Edited by Edward Newenham Hoare (1802-1877)". . .
Page 580: "1. 'R.H.' Identifies Time as Philadelphia Period. - In volume 1, by means of a diagram, 'R.H.' identifies the seven periods of the Christian church as symbolized by the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3; Ephesus is the apostolic age; Smyrna, persecution under pagan Rome; Pergamos, temporal prosperity under Constantine; Thyatira, papal persecution of the martyrs in the Dark Ages; Sardis, the sixteenth-century Reformation; Philadelphia, spiritual emphasis in the early nineteenth century; and Laodicea, the time of great declension prior to the second advent and the judgment of Antichrist. He thus identifies his own time as that of Philadelphia, and believes that the advent is drawing near." (April, 1830, vol. 1, no. 4, p. 56.)
Could "R.H." be Hardman? “Rev. Hardman” (his first name was Edward)? In any case, Darby read the Christian Herald - and contributed articles.
He might have known more of what was going on in connection with the Christian Herald than just contributing articles.
Why?
Well, who was the publisher of the Christian Herald? It was Richard Moore Tims - one of the first "Brethren" in Dublin!
(Tims is a very interesting person and I am attempting to find out more about him. Other than that his son Robert married into the publisher Samuel Bagster family I have not been able to obtain much as of yet. I do have a list of the titles he published. There are important "non-Brethren" books on prophecy among them.)
The time between the Christian Herald article and Darby mentioning Hardman teaching the same material is almost 3 1/2 years!
If Darby found these thoughts interesting in 1833 why not in 1830?
Didn’t he know about the article? Didn’t Tims inform him?
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| RESEARCH PAPER 12 |
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| Vaughans / Darbys |
When working on the first edition of my biography I could find nothing on Samuel Vaughan and little on JNDs parents. This time around I'm swamped with material. Many people have been very helpful in supplying information and material or pointing me in right directions. (Especially Charles Darby, Philip McNair, Danny D. Smith and Timothy Stunt.) I now have portraits and letters and so on - but there is still a long way to go. The following is in every sense "preliminary". (I will be going into more detail and giving the necessary references in the book - whenever that will be completed.)
Members of the Darby family have been very, very friendly in sending me copies of letters written by Jonathan Darby (JND's grandfather) to his son John (JND's father) in the 1770s. These letters convey the impression of a concerned and loving father. John was in London "in training" and Jonathan was writing to him from Ireland. John's address in London was Old Jewry.
Jonathan often mentions Samuel and Benjamin Vaughan as good friends of his in the above mentioned letters. (I am not sure if the Benjamin here is Samuel's father, brother - or son - there were Benjamins in all these "categories".) Darby/Vaughan contacts existed long before John married Ann Vaughan. Samuel Vaughan was a wealthy London merchant in London (who also had a residence in Jamaica), his place of business was actually not too far away from where Darby was situated.
Previous accounts which state that the Vaughan family related to the Darby's through marriage came from Golden Grove Ireland are incorrect.
Samuel Vaughan was born on 23 April 1720 as the youngest son of Benjamin and Ann (Wolf). He married Sarah Hallowell (born 26 February 1727) on 1 February 1747 and together they had 11 children. Sarah was the daughter of Benjamin Hallowell (1699-1773) who was a major shareholder in a land company owning 1 ˝ million acres in central Maine in America. Samuel made her acquaintance during his travels.
Much can be said about the Vaughan family which is very interesting and intriguing - especially the lives of some of Samuel's sons, (some of these sons are to be found in the Dictionary of American Biography and American National Biography) but that would detract here where it does not have direct relevance to JND and his immediate family.
One interesting piece of information supplied to me by Danny D. Smith is the account of a cousin of JND's from America who visited his relatives in England in 1801. He mentions JND's mother and his getting along quite well with JND's brother Jonathan and sister Susan. I'll quote in detail in my book.
The Darby Archives in East Sussex make mention of John Darby's trip to America ("During his absence in America"), but without any exact dates.
Archives in America help. Besides the extensive exchange of letters between Samuel Vaughan and his sons with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin there is also one letter written by John Darby to George Washington from Boston dated 2nd August 1783. John Darby mentions letters of introduction and letters from friends for Washington and his own wish to meet him personally.
John Darby married Ann Vaughan on 21 July 1784 in Trinity Church Parish, New York, New York. (Its sister Church is St. Mary-Le-Bow, in Cheapside, London very close to Old Jewry where John Darby lived. Today this area belongs to the parish of St. Mary-Le-Bow, but it didn't in 1784.)
Samuel Vaughan came with his family from Jamaica to Philadelphia on 8 September 1773 (son John had been sent ahead to arrange things). He was elected one of the Vice Presidents of the American Philosophical Society there in May 1784.
In September 1787 his wife and at least one daughter returned to England while he remained in America for some time. He went to Jamaica, then back to America and then finally to England in 1790.
The family was Unitarian - though Ann Vaughan was baptized in a Presbyterian Church in London - and Samuel Vaughan seems to have been more interested in architecture and gardening than religion.
John Darby and Ann Vaughan knew each other from London, but they married in America. John Darby was probably there because of business matters and Ann because of the "family trip". Had the marriage in New York been planned in advance? Or was it a decision made while both were in America?
Just recently I have received a small collection of Darby family letters. These are most interesting.
Among them is a letter of Anne Darby's from 1787 to her sister Rebecca who was staying with the well known Unitarian Dr. Priestly at the time in Fair Hill (Birmingham). It contains advice on what a woman should be like. At the close Anne mentions her daughter Susan who must have been 2 years old at the time.
This is especially interesting because I also have a photocopy of a letter by Susan, then Pennefather, from 1809 describing her brother Jonathan's illness and death.
Whereas Ann's 1787 letter gives one the impression that she had a detached attitude to religion - she advices her sister not to over do it in religious matters and tells her to seek Priestly's recommendation on which books to read - Jonathan and Susan seemed to have been more devoted.
From other letters it seems as if John and Anne's daughter Sarah was in America for a while, or this could be references to Anne's sister of the same name.
Anne's brother Benjamin, the 4th eldest son of the family, was known - among other things - for his extensive library. With the family connections to Philadelphia and Benjamin's wide range of interest I wonder if Morgan Edwards' “Two Academical Exercises on Subjects Bearing the following Titles; Millennium, Last-Novelties” was part of this library? It was published in Philadelphia in 1788. In the past JND having any knowledge or access to this work seemed questionable - to say the least. But now, given these family connections?
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| RESEARCH PAPER 13 |
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| Brooke |
Marigold Freeman-Attwood's book 'Leap Castle – A Place and its People' has caught the attention of some Brethren due to the Darby family connection. Marigold included a letter by John Nelson Darby to his brother Horatio in the Appendix dated 5 October 1835. This is of interest for various reasons, but one of them is the following.
Brooke also mentions people like Robert Daly, Irving, Magee, Parnell, Pennefather, Synge, Wingfiield and Wolff among others. He also mentions Darby's fellow clergyman William Cleaver on page 19:
All references I have found on Cleaver present him in a consistently positive light. He worked closely with Darby. Actually everybody Darby worked with turns out to be very commendable – Daly and others. Magee was not as negative a person as he is often presented to be.
Some scholars have seen an important influence on Darby through Graves at Trinity College. Of course there may have been contact and an indirect influence, but Darby did not attend Graves' classes and Graves was not his tutor. Singer was.
Here is what Brooke writes about Singer (page 8):
Singer apparently made the greater impression on Darby. In later years (i.e. after Darby's Trinity time) Darby worked together with him and personalized a copy of his 'The Doctrine of the Church of England at the Time of the Reformation' for Singer with 'Revd. J. Singer from the Author'.
Someone wrote to me in connection with not placing any great value on a possible influence on Darby through Graves:
If Darby was greatly interested in prophecy later, he was not so in the beginning. Bellett's remarks on the time in question (Trinity, London, Wicklow) suggest that prophecy was not a subject matter between them of any great importance. Darby kept insisting nobody had influenced him. Why, when he was surrounded by influences?
After Trinity, where he had also been with Darby, Bellett studied in London during the time Darby was there. It is hard to believe they did not see each other. Apparently in 1821 he was impressed by the life of Henry Martyn and the preaching of Charles Simeon. What influence did this have on Darby?
Max.
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| RESEARCH PAPER 14 |
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| Walker |
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From: "Max Weremchuk" |
Dear Sirs,
While continuing my revision work on the John Nelson Darby biography as well as enlarging a chapter in my (German) book dealing with the origins of dispensationalist teaching ("Soehne der Verheissungen") I have come across the following interesting connections. If you ever find the time I would appreciate some interaction on the matter if possible.
With kindest regards, Max Weremchuk.
Many years ago H. H. Rowdon pointed out the strong similarities between the Brethren and the Walkerites. Other more recent works have gone into the possibility of there having been connections, but often drawing conclusions based on incorrect assumptions (e.g. "… while John Walker was a fellow at Trinity College, where he most likely knew Darby" - impossible as JND was a small child in London at the time in question).
In the Editor's Preface to the 3rd and 4th volumes of "Remains of Alexander Knox, Esq." (London, 1837) on page 36 is the following:
The ideas of John Walker are certainly items that would have been discussed. Granted, the Walker/Knox exchange was of a much earlier date, but Walker certainly left his mark, as William Pennefather - JND's nephew - wrote about him in 1834:
Given the fact that Darby was converted during this period it would not be surprising if he knew of the Walkerites. He was a "strict Churchman" at the time, nevertheless something could have been planted then that sprouted later.
"As the Jewish dispensation was cut off, the Christian dispensation will be also", (CW2:321) in 1840 when back in 1825/26 Irving and after that many others were preaching and writing about the Lord's soon coming to judge the Church and restore Israel. The idea that began to become popular back then was that judgment was coming - and coming soon - for an unfaithful Church.
Then there is the example I have referred to elsewhere, where Darby remarks on the application of the 7 Churches in Revelation 2 and 3 to the history of the Church as an interesting new insight though it had been in circulation for years.
Edward Synge might be an example. Darby worked with him at least as early as 1829. Edward Synge is described as having a: "new creed of biblical fundamentalism … equally distant from protestant and catholic. He expressed the opinion that being a member of any institutional church, whether protestant or catholic, was inconsequential in comparison to reading the bible".
The end result of Darby's views on the Church and on prophecy may have carried his individual stamp, but they were definitely influenced and "supplied" by many others.
Max Weremchuk, 67283 Obrigheim (Albsheim), Germany>
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| RESEARCH PAPER 15 |
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| John Henry Newman |
Hi Jeff!
I hope you and yours are doing well. It has been sometime since I have contributed something, but I haven’t really continued my research. It is quite frustrating to know where sources of information are, but not being able to obtain them.
A good friend of mine will be writing his doctoral thesis on John Henry Newman. This got me interested again, because I am sure J.N. Darby and J.H. Newman knew each other much earlier than supposed.
In earlier “Research Papers” I had gone into the amazing similarity of development in both Darby and Newman. For example, that they were both at Lincoln’s Inn at the same time.
Here are two quotes from “The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman” (Edited by Ian Kerr and Thomas Gornall, S.J., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979).
Sad to say, it is difficult to ascertain which “Pennefather” is meant in Newman’s letters and diaries, because he simply writes “Pennefather”.
Between these two entries is placed one for '1821 June or July':
This latter paper "falls . . . into two parts: the first is more properly doctrinal; the second is the description of conversion. The first part seems better to represent Newman's own personal thought and shows clearly the influence of Thomas Scott; it has a markedly Trinitarian stamp and lays great stress on the Law of God and the need for internal holiness.
"The second part, which was done more with the aid of books other than Scott, describes a conversion which Newman never experienced; it is the classical Evangelical conversion." Sheridan, p. 58. For a detailed discussion of the two papers in the context of Newman's thought, see Sheridan, pp. 44-58.
"There is a third paper, ten pages long, on which Newman has written '1822 or 1823?' It is concerned with the theology rather than phenomenon of conversion, and is an attempt to reconcile the evangelical doctrine of conversion with the institution of baptism (especially infant)." See Sheridan, pp. 58-62; also pp. 62-6 for a discussion of Newman's views at this period.
Isn't this interesting? Not only the mention of Thomas Scott as in Darby's case, but also the uncertainty of the month and the year. Is this all coincidence?
It is strange that if Darby and Newman really did know each other from Lincoln Inn's days they do not mention it. Strange for us, but not necessarily for them. I have been reading some literature from the 19th century and what comes across very strongly is the feeling - which was commonplace then - for propriety and not betraying a confidence. This may be somewhat difficult for us to understand today as we tend to be very open and unashamed, but in the past people would remain silent about things for reasons we would not.
Every blessing, Max.
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