Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/8



Instead of constant references, I have furnished at the end of the book a sufficient bibliography, chronologically classified. In one or two instances only, I have mentioned books that I have not succeeded in consulting. On the other hand, I have omitted very many that I have not found of much service, and on the sole authority of which I have stated nothing.

There is a class of possible readers that might be led by my name into the very erroneous impression that I had largely drawn on my father’s longer, and yet more intimate, personal acquaintance with Darbyism. Indirectly, this is inevitably the case; directly, it is not so at all. From the time that I first contemplated going into print on the subject of Brethrenism, I have advisedly and scrupulously abstained from consulting my father on any point. I believe there is no exception whatever to this statement, except for two details, both purely doctrinal, on which I obtained his opinion as to the teaching of standard Darbyite divinity; and, even in those cases, I gave him no hint of my object. I say this, because I have no right to claim his authority for anything I have written; and yet more because it would be most unjust to him to allow an impression to grow up in any mind that he has some responsibility in connexion with a book of which he has not seen a word (barring, of course, quotations), and with a