A history of the Plymouth Brethren/Preface
The present work is partly based on a series of articles that I contributed to the British Weekly at the close of last year and the beginning of this, under the title of Darby and Darbyism. Perhaps about half the matter of the articles has been incorporated in the book, and the book is about three times as long as the whole of the articles. Readers of the British Weekly may therefore count on finding about five-sixths of this work fresh matter.
In the articles, enough narrative was supplied to make the description intelligible. In the book these relations are precisely reversed. An entirely fresh study of all the materials for the history, so far as they have proved accessible, (and the author has had comparatively few disappointments), has been made. I am not aware of any previous attempt to thoroughly sift and harmonise them.
Indeed, this book has one great advantage: it takes the field without rivals. No general history of the Plymouth movement has ever been undertaken. In introducing my articles, I argued that there was room for them in the midst of an already voluminous literature; but the plea is now superfluous. Yet it may be worth while to repeat some illustrations that I then gave of a general ignorance of Brethrenism, curiously out of keeping with the interest that it excites.
“A standard work, eminently learned and candid—I refer to Mr. Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology—contains in its article on Plymouth Brethren Hymnody the following extraordinary assertion: ‘The [hymn-] books put forth since the rupture in 1848 contain … a selection … for the “unconverted,” i.e., those who are not in full communion with themselves’. Now, though this is not by any means the only error in the article, the writer has, on the whole, more knowledge of the subject than [many] who have written on it, and he evidently makes his statement with a good faith equal to his confidence. Yet nothing can be more certain than that it is a very great, and indeed totally groundless calumny upon the Brethren, who have (with some absolutely insignificant exceptions) always used the term ‘unconverted’ according to immemorial evangelical custom.
“Add to this instance of what we might call a learned error, a single instance of the commoner class of popular errors. I have seldom, I think, conversed with any one not intimately acquainted with the Brethren, but what I have found that he understood Open Brethren to be so called because they admit Christians who are not ‘Brethren’ to the communion table, and Exclusive Brethren to have earned their title by the exclusion of all who did not belong to their own sect.”
It will be seen that I have been very sparing of references to my authorities. This has been partly due to a belief that my readers will in most cases share my dislike to a text encumbered with notes; but partly also to the peculiarities of the special case. The great majority of the authorities are now inaccessible to most readers. I have consulted scores of tracts that very few people could possibly procure. Besides those in my own possession, or in possession of my relatives, very many have come under my inspection through the courtesy of friends with whom my articles had brought me into correspondence. To one correspondent, whose connexion with the Brethren dates back to 1845, I am under obligations that I find it quite impossible to adequately acknowledge. Not only has he placed at my disposal a set of tracts that is, I should suppose, almost unrivalled for the period 1845-70, but he has taken the greatest pains to clear up, by the help of private correspondence, various obscurities that I have submitted to him. For the later period, my own resources have been very ample.
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 good deal of which he probably would not wholly agree.
To avoid confusion, will the reader kindly take note that whenever the italics in a quotation are my own, and not those of the author quoted, I have invariably said so. The omission of a statement to that effect always implies that the italics were in the original.
W. BLAIR NEATBY.
September 1901.