[testallthings]

WHAT DO YOU SEE????



In reading Dr. Nigel Tomes article, it is impossible not to notice how the author has portrait J. N. Darby: dark, negative, malignant, furious, unkind, scheming, authoritarian, etc.. On the other side, the person of B. Newton appears innocent (though in footnote 9, he admits that B. Newton had fallen into heresy, but he readily adds that also Darby fell into the similar heresy 12 years later. I'll discuss this point in a future post. D.V.).

When he has to describe Darby, Dr. N. T. relies heavily, or actually exclusively, on Darby's critics, while on the other hand he quotes from Newton's “cousin”, Tregelles, to support his (Newton) cause, and the testimony of a sister, who was associated with Mueller, to describe how G. Mueller (about whom no one questioned his saintly attitude) behaved during the “storm”.

It seems that J.N. Darby didn't deserve any good words whatsoever. We understand that in the polemic nature of Dr. N. Tomes article there is little space for a fair treatment of Darby's person., and that to rely on second hand sources is time saving. Not that quoting from second hand witnesses is per se bad, but why take into account only this kind of “witnesses” (after all they were not living at the time when these events took place)? So Dr. Tomes is happy to present to his readers the opinions, about Darby and the Bethesda Chapel, of critics of Darby, especially those of F. Roy Coad, whom belonged to the Open Brethren.


What if a man by reading a book concerning Jesus, written by enemy of Christianity, and without reading the New Testament believed the negative propositions of infidels? To me it seems that those who speak negatively about Darby have read very little by him and have drank freely only from those who opposed him, for one reason or another.