Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/27

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"“The Archbishop [Magee] delivered a charge, and the clergy published a declaration addressed to Parliament denouncing the Roman Catholic Church, and claiming special favour and protection for themselves on avowedly Erastian principles. They based their demands simply on the ground that Romanism was opposed to the State, while their own system was allied with, if not even subservient to, it. Darby’s mind revolted against such a miserably low, unspiritual view of the Church. He drew up, therefore, and circulated privately a very vigorous protest against the action of the clergy, a sufficiently courageous step for a young curate of two years’ standing. … It is a very interesting document when read in the light of subsequent events, and explains the intensely Erastian tone in the Church of that day, of which the early Tractarian writers so bitterly complained, and against which they so persistently struggled. Darby’s protest was unavailing. The Establishment was everything to Churchmen of that time, the Church of God was nothing regarded, and Darby’s soul was vexed thereat.”"

Magee followed up the Charge and the Petition to Parliament by imposing the oaths of allegiance and supremacy on all converts from Romanism within his diocese. “It is,” said Darby in his remonstrance, “on the part of the Clergy a natural consequence of the Charge and Petition; for if they propose themselves as candidates for the favour of the civil government, in order to obtain its protection, and then seek for its aid in the character in which they have proposed themselves, it is at once their interest, and I must add, their obligation to support its interests in their ministry, and bind others to the same system: but how will this consist with their duty to Christ, and the souls which He has purchased with His own blood, and gathering them for Him?”

The words that immediately follow show how far Darby had advanced beyond his earlier High Churchmanship.

“Further the admission [of Roman Catholic converts] is ‘into the true Catholic Church, established in these realms’. This ends in