Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/161

Rh saying “one at least,” what did he intend his readers to infer as to the others?

It is not wonderful that the adherents of Darby should have caught at any chance of accrediting his extraordinary Narrative. Trotter makes another effort. Not only Howard, but also Andrew Jukes (at that time associated with the Brethren), assured him that “every endeavour to shake” the testimony of Darby’s pamphlets recoiled “on the heads of those who made them”—to wit, of such men as Lord Congleton, and the late Robert Nelson, then of Edinburgh.

I have not assumed that the pamphlets in question are deliberately untruthful; but as for their reliability, let any one read them and judge for himself. With regard to the effect said to have been produced at the Bath meeting on the minds of Howard and Jukes, it is impossible to attach any weight to it. To pit Lord Congleton against Mr. Darby in a public discussion, without a very strong chairman, was no more likely a way to elicit the truth than any other form of the time-honoured method of single combat.

From this time Newton ceased to take any active part in the history of the Brethren. He survived his separation from them by more than fifty years, standing, until his recent death, at the head of a very small but very devoted band of disciples. His doctrinal errors in the period preceding the separation are not to be denied; but certain circumstances must be mentioned that more or less extenuate his responsibility, and that also shed light on the early doctrinal conceptions of the Brethren in general.

In the first place, Newton’s greatest error, of which he made such ample confession, had been taught by him