Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/180

 would not have been “common honesty to have asked for evidence,” when his judgment was already formed.

Craik admits having made part of the statement attributed to him by Wigram’s correspondent, but positively denies having used “the grossly objectionable expression” with reference to Christ becoming “a shrivelled old man”. As for the rest of the statement, it had been made “in a moment of excitement,” and “at the same meeting confessed as sin before the brethren, and acknowledged as such before God in prayer”. Wigram partially accepts this explanation, though with no great heartiness, but affirms that the incident in question had not been the gravamen of his charge, and lays all the stress on the quotation from the pastoral letter, and on Craik ’s reply on that head. By this reply, according to Wigram, Craik was hoplessly committed.

If this were a mere bickering between two men but little known to the present generation it would be unpardonable to allot it any further space in a historical summary like the present. But it is in reality very much more than that. It defines the battlefield of Darbyism during the whole of the generation following, and even to a great extent down to the present day. Craik, in his reply, had used the following language: “What I asserted was that our blessed Lord, having life in Himself, could have prolonged His life for ever if He had so chosen. Secondly, that He could not by any possibility die but as the sacrifice for sin; but that He was so truly human that poison, or the sword piercing His heart, would have destroyed the union between His soul and His body, had He not put forth His power to prevent the natural result. If this be denied, it seems to me that the faith of the Catholic Church (in all ages) is repudiated; and the necessary inference would be, that the Blessed One did