Let me be forgiven for a moment for speaking of myself, as what I say has a bearing on these points. I know the system. I knew it and walked in it years before Dr Newman (as I learn from this book) thought on this subject; and when Dr Pusey was not heard of. I fasted in Lent so as to be so weak in the body at the end of it; I ate no meat on week days- nothing till evening on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, then a little bread or nothing; observed strictly the weekly fasts, too. I went to my clergyman always if I wished to take the sacrament, that he might judge of the matter. I held the apostolic succession fully, and the channels of grace to be there only. I held thus Luther and his followers to be outside. I was not their judge, but I left them to the uncovenanted mercies of God. I searched with earnest diligence the evidence for apostolic succession in England, and just saved their validity for myself and my conscience. The union of Church and state I held to be Babylonish, that the church ought to govern itself, and that she was in bondage but was the church.
J.N.Darby Analysis of Dr Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua in Collected Writings, vol.1, p.156
If you belong to a church with no bishops, aren't you glad that the uncovenanted mercies of God might just save you from hell?
Darby moved away from this theology after his riding accident in 1827, when he came to discover assurance of salvation.
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