It is painful, deeply painful, to reflect on a scene of such wonderful freshness, simplicity, and genuine devotedness, being blighted and desolated by the subtle wiles of Satan, through a false but influential teacher. The Spirit of God had wrought mightily at Plymouth, and produced the most marvelous fruits of His gracious operations; but the arch-enemy had his evil eye on those who were bearing such a bright testimony to the truth and church of God, and found, within their own gates, a ready instrument to do his ruinous work. "It now appears," says one who passed through the sifting, searching period from 1845-8, " that almost from the very first there were elements of evil introduced by the enemy, very slowly and gradually manifesting themselves for a time, but in the end assuming a distinctness and working with an energy which left no room for doubt as to whence they came and to what they tended."
As it was in the beginning, when the kingdom of heaven was preached, men slept and the enemy sowed tares where the good seed had been sown; so it was at Plymouth. In the very midst of the Brethren themselves, and by one of their principal leaders, the enemy was early and steadily at work. Mr. Newton, a man of grave manners and of considerable influence over a certain class, and one of the earliest laborers at Plymouth, was observed by some, almost from the outset, to isolate himself from the other Brethren. " He held reading meetings, and would not allow the laboring Brethren to be present, saying it was bad for the taught to hear the authority of the teachers called in question, as it shook confidence in them." This was the beginning, the creeping in of clericalism, which gradually grew up into a definite system. But no one at that time seems to have suspected any serious evil springing from it, and for years no voice was raised to arrest its progress. " I sorrowed over this unhappy trait of isolation," says Mr. Darby, "and love of acting alone, and having his followers for himself; but I had no suspicion whatever of any purpose of any kind, bore with it as a failing of which we all had some, and left perfect individual liberty complete and entirely untrenched on. I should not have so acted without my brethren. I should have rejoiced to have my views corrected by them when I needed it, and learn theirs; but there it was, and there for my part I left it. At the Clifton meeting Mr. Newton, speaking of ministry and the points connected with it, told me that his principles were changed. I replied that mine were not, that I felt I had received them from the Lord's teaching, and with His grace I should hold them fast to the end....
"As to the teaching I heard in Ebrington Street from Mr. Newton, the one undeviating object seemed to be to teach differently from what other Brethren had taught, no matter what, so that it set their teaching aside. This was so marked in many cases as to draw the attention of others besides myself."
Those who have carefully marked the origin and early days of Brethren, will have no difficulty in seeing the craft of Satan in the system thus introduced by Mr. Newton. " That which characterized their testimony at the outset was the coming of the Lord as the present hope of the church, and the presence of the Holy Ghost as that which brought into unity, and animated and directed the children of God; and they avowed their dependence upon it. The distinct condition of the saints of the present dispensation, as filled with the Spirit abiding with them and risen with Christ, marked their teaching, while the great truths of the gospel were held in common with other true Christians, only with the clearer light which God Himself directly, and these other truths, afforded. The distinct heavenly character of the church was much insisted on." Just as Moses went outside the camp because of the golden calf, so did these Brethren go outside the camp of the professing church, because of the practical denial of the unity, heavenly calling, and hopes of the church; other saints who had faith to follow them were companions in their position, and they were not separated in life, love, or essential unity, from those who would not, though blamed by them.