kinds of suffering—only the last, of course as Himself a perfect being to learn for others; I need not say that he was perfect in all.” This sentence gave great offence, and Darby endeavoured to shield himself by a footnote, which does not greatly alter matters. Dorman’s criticism is just. “His adding ‘as a perfect being to learn it for others,’ is not of the least force; because it involves the absolute contradiction of what is affirmed. For a moral condition is a moral condition; and there is but one way of passing through it.” Apparently both Newton and Darby found themselves precipitated by their system on a conclusion against which their heart and conscience cried out. They hesitated, grew confused, and expressed themselves unintelligibly. The important thing is that there should be one weight and one measure for them both.
The question is in itself a wearisome one. Its importance lies in the huge contradiction in which it involved a party committed at once to the persecution of Newton’s obsolete errors, and to the sanction of their recrudescence in Darby’s doctrines.
Dorman refers pathetically, but in no unmanly tone, to the strange trouble that had befallen him, in that he was compelled for the second time to make for the sake of truth the surrender “of everything in the world, which it is in the power of a man to surrender”. He explains his action in the following terms:—
“I cannot any longer pursue to ‘the tenth generation’ people who have no more to do with Mr. Newton’s doctrine than I have, nor any more leaning towards it—merely because they cannot endorse Mr. D.’s decree. … My heart has been withered by the necessity of schooling Christians—young and old, ignorant and well-informed—in the mysteries of an act of discipline of eighteen years’ standing, and in endeavouring to shew the present bearings
