odious warfare), which presumably was to be produced if the first instalment failed of its effect. As he can hardly be suspected of not putting his strongest points forward in the first instance, we need be at no loss to judge of the rest. He closes with the startling announcement that he “would rather expose” his “family circle to the results of the friendly intercourse of any Irvingite teacher, or a Roman Catholic priest, than of any one of the five,”—to wit, Newton and his four colleagues.
The most significant paragraph in the letter is the following: “But I must add, that the ‘Narrative’ published by Mr. Darby seems to me to put the question upon other grounds, and in some measure, therefore, to neutralise this, because it makes the question not ‘Has —— told a lie and not repented of it?’ but rather, ‘Is not —— led by a lying spirit, and, through a lengthened course of actions, trying to bring in something like Romanism?’”
Darby, in like manner, held that there was unquestionably at Plymouth “a spirit of delusion from the enemy at work,” and that “terrible as such a thing no doubt is, it is a comfort in one point of view that it accounts for otherwise unaccountable things”.[1] This much-needed hypothesis became a notable weapon in the hands of these two ecclesiastics. It helped to make credible their accusations of falsehood against men of notoriously honourable character, and must be pronounced a most detestable device for taking away the rights of an accused person, and for opening the floodgates to indiscriminate calumny.
Dr. Tregelles was at that time prosecuting in London the great work on the sacred text by which he has made
