take the oversight of ministry, and that he would hinder that which was manifestly unprofitable and unedifying”; that Darby also, writing from Dublin, addressed a letter to “B. Newton, Esq., Elder of the Saints meeting in Raleigh Street, Plymouth”;[1] and that “on one occasion Mr. Newton had in the assembly to stop ministry which was manifestly improper, with Mr. J. N. Darby and Mr. G. V. Wigram’s presence and full concurrence”. Speaking from memory, I believe Darby recognised Wigram as occupying a similar position in his London meeting. Evidently then, if Newton prevented ministry much at his own discretion, he did not in that particular depart from general early practice. That Newton exercised his right tyrannically is perfectly possible, and would not surprise me, though I do not think that any proof that it was so is now available.[2]
But by far the bitterest of Darby’s complaints related to Newton’s alleged systematic effort to band together all the Brethren everywhere, so far as his influence could reach them, in resolute opposition to the school of doctrine of which Darby was the head. That such an effort was actually being made, and made strenuously, there is no doubt whatever. Newton was measuring
- ↑ This was the meeting-place till 1840, when the church removed to Ebrington Street, retaining the old room for mission work, prayer meetings, etc.
- ↑ Dr. Tregelles gives the following extract from a tract written by G. V. Wigram in (as he believes) 1844.
“E.Do you admit ‘a regular ministry’?
“W.If by a regular ministry you mean a stated ministry (that is, that in every assembly those who are gifted of God to speak to edification will be both limited in number and known to the rest), I do admit it; but if by a regular ministry you mean an exclusive ministry, I dissent. By an exclusive ministry I mean the recognising certain persons as so exclusively holding the place of teachers, as that the use of a real gift by any one else would be irregular.”
