John Nelson Darby: the unknown and well known nineteenth century Irish reformer

Just as the Protestant Reformation did not begin with the German reformer, so also it did not end with him. No single date is agreed upon by historians as the end of the Reformation, though several have been offered. Some have pointed to the Peace of Westphalia, wherein a series of treaties ended the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) and allowed Calvinism to be freely exercised. Others placed it in the mid-eighteenth century, around the time of the First Great Awakening (1730–1755). However, some have maintained that the Reformation never truly ended; rather it continues on to the present day. This chapter demonstrates that the ideas which began to coalesce in the minds of the sixteenth century reformers continued into the centuries that followed and were, in fact, most pronounced in the far-reaching ministry of one who may well be among the most overlooked and underappreciated figures in church history: the unknown and well known nineteenth century Irish reformer, John Nelson Darby (1800–1882).