Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/99

Rh pulses, and it was not precise definition that would have given them sympathetic utterance. His strength lay, now as ever, in the reality of the abuses he attacked. Herzog’s view of the ordained ministry is such as most English Evangelicals would now consider over-strained in a Presbyterian church; while even those who are still at the older point of view would at least admit that Darby in his antagonism to it was occupying a perfectly intelligible position. And when, in replying to Rochat, he complained that “there are so many flocks” (evidently amongst the Dissenters) “habitually deprived of partaking of the Lord’s Supper through the want of consecrated pastors,” it is probable that he carried with him the hearts and consciences of hundreds of the Christian people in Vaud. Moreover, in proposing a remedy, there was no need for him to take all the risks of explicitness. Omne ignotum pro magnifico—the habit of expecting everything from an untried, but much belauded course—was a principle that would not fail to complete his success for him ; and Darby was the last man to increase his vulnerability by lengthening unnecessarily his lines of defence.

Both his prudence and his vagueness are illustrated in his central doctrine of the “ruin of the Church”. The vague phrase fell in with the discontent that prevailed amongst men who had separated from the State Church, and had made apparently but a disappointing experiment in Nonconformity. Darby did not offer to define his meaning, nor does it seem to have occurred to any one to request him to do so; but the battle raged all the more fiercely for being fought in the dark. It is not until we have advanced a dozen pages into Darby’s second reply to Rochat, that it is possible to collect in what sense the term “Church” is used in his great