However, we have multiple members of the Irvingites and Brethren, that were eyewitnesses to the events of the early 19th century, who say that Darby's "Secret Rapture" teaching came from the Irvingites.
Do we take the word of Darby and his apologists or that of the multiple unbiased and sober eye witnesses?
You claim that your multiple sources are "unbiased and sober eye witnesses," but that is demonstrably incorrect. There was not even one of them, including the first one (Tergelles) to make the charge, that was not already a dedicated enemy of both dispensationalism and the concept of a pre-trib rapture, long before they began to circulate the charge.
A man who is a dedicated opponent of a man (or an idea) is no more an "unbiased" witness that a dedicated supporter.
You have already clearly demonstrated that you have basically zero knowledge of original sources. You rely entirely on what various people have said about these old documents.
I am a little baffled by your statement of Darby not knowing about Macdonald's vision.
It was my understanding from you that Darby had admitted visiting the Macdonald's.
We also know from his own words in his 1829 paper that he was reading "The Morning Watch", which was the periodical of the Irvingites.
Margaret's "Secret Rapture" was first mentioned in the September 1830 edition.
We also know from Coad's 1966 paper and others that the "Secret Rapture" teaching was discussed by those who attended the conferences which met at Powerscourt, starting in 1831.
Darby, J. N., Reflections (1829), Prophetic No. 1
Reflections upon the Prophetic Inquiry and the views advanced in it
PROPHETIC DEVELOPMENTS
with particular reference to the early Brethren Movement.
F. Roy Coad (Brethren Historian) read pages 10-26
http://brethrenhistory.org/qwicsitePro/php/docsview.php?docid=418
Darby himself indeed openly wrote about having visited MacDonald's church, and even mentioned her as a speaker at the time he visited. And Darby indeed attended at least some of the Albury conferences. And Darby indeed read at least some articles in "The Morning Watch."
But Darby's own comments indicated that he only attended MacDonald's church as an unbelieving visitor, and apparently only on a single day, although it is possible he may have visited several different days. And not even one of the sources you are using has found even one witness that said that Darby was present at any time when this doctrine was mentioned.
Tim Warner based his conclusion that it was discussed when Darby was present on the statement of a witness that Warner claims was there, but he provided zero documentation to back up that claim. And the single short quotation he gave from that witness said nothing about Darby being present at the meeting he was discussing. And it did not say that the pretribulation rapture was mentioned at that same meeting.
So Tim Warner's conclusion was backed up only by documentation that, in his opinion, made it a fair assumption that Darby knew about the doctrine.
And not even one of your sources has ever been able to find even one witnesses that claims that Darby ever made even one comment specifically about the alleged vision.
The only hard fact, and I repeat,
the only hard fact that all this research has produced is evidence that both the alleged vision and its publication pre-dated anything that Darby published about his doctrine of a pretribulation rapture.
But you resolutely refuse to admit that the doctrine of a pretribulation rapture existed before the alleged time of the alleged vision, even though this has been thoroughly documented with actual quotations from original sources.
You attempt to impune the entire process of answering this charge by quoting a single individual (Grant Jeffery) who made claims that were demonstrably incorrect, and backed them up with out-of-context quotations. But you have refused to admit that your own main source of information, Dave MacPherson, not only made claims that were demonstrably incorrect, but libelously pressed the false charge that Darby covered up his visit to Margaret MacDonald's church. And, considering the amount of research that he invested in his book, "The Incredible Cover-Up," it is inconceivable that he did not know that his charge was false.
So, while one of the many witnesses against this lie has indeed been demonstrated to have presented assumptions as facts, the same is true of every witness you have produced, and the main leader of them at this time not only presented assumptions as fact, but published (and continues to publish) what appears to be a willful lie about the foundation facts involved.
What you do not want to understand, but is unquestionably true, is that eschatology was a relative small part of the extensive ministry of J. N. Darby. I told you my personal library contained more than sixty volumes by Darby, but I did not mention that only about half a dozen of these were about prophecy, and his entire writing about the pretribulation rapture doctrine was not even enough to fill one such volume. He devoted his entire life to Christian ministry, and Ecclesiology was a far greater part of his ministry than eschatology. And Christolgy, Pneumatology, and Soteriology all occupied major portions of his ministry.
So why would a multi-faceted man, who dealt regularly in basically all portions of Christian truth, compromise his entire self and being by, in a single point, going against everything he stood for?
For if Darby had placed any significance whatsoever in the alleged vision, even if he knew about it, that would have been a rejection of his most basic internal principles. He would have been throwing away his entire career for a single point that was, in actual fact, a relatively minor part of his ministry.