Considering this age the "dispensation of the Spirit," Darby rejected the concept of a professional class of ministers, emphasizing the Spirit's presence and bestowal of gifts to all believers to build up the Church.

Three major controlling themes characterize Darby's Pneumatology: The Spirit and the World; the Spirit and the Church; and, the Spirit and the Christian.

His doctrine of the Spirit impacts upon each area of his overall theology and shares the dominant place (with the areas of Ecclesiology and Eschatology) as truth which God is using the Plymouth Brethren to recover. Darby's dispensationalism and his Pneumatology are particularly related to one another. Certain doctrines, such as the doctrine of assurance, are dispensation specific. Several truths concerning the presence and operations of the Spirit were not available to the Old Testament believer.

The isolation of Darby's Pneumatology reveals its primacy in and importance to his overall theology (especially his dispensationalism). His Pneumatology is evaluated and several suggestions are given for further research.

Our first appendix compares the views of John Calvin, John Wesley, Edward Irving, and John Nelson Darby on the issue of miraculous gifts. The questions of how these gifts are to be defined and whether these gifts are still available for the Church are discussed.

Our second appendix demonstrates the importance of Darby and the Plymouth Brethren Movement in the history of conservative theology in five specific areas: Dispensationalism and Millenarianism; American Fundamentalism and The Fundamentals; The Scofield Reference Bible; the Bible Conference Movement; and, the Modern Missionary Movement.