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APPENDIX C
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faith on the name of Jesus, crying mightily to Him day and night, that He
would fulfill His faithfulness to that name-it hath pleased Him to give to
some of us, in my church, this baptism, with its sign of speaking in
unknown tongues, and with its substance of prophesying; and I, as His
dutiful minister, standing in this room, responsible (as ye all are) to
Him, have not dared to believe that, when we prayed to God for bread, He
would give us a stone; that when we asked for a fish, He would send us a
serpent; but believing that He is faithful who has promised, and trying
the thing given by test of the Holy Scriptures, and the testimony of God
in my own conscience, and in that of His people, and having thus been
satisfied of the truth of the manifestations, I have not dared to put it
to silence, as being the thing witnessed in the Holy Scriptures; and have
ordered it, as I can show, in nothing contrary to the standards of the
Church. Yet, because I would not put my hand on it to suppress the voice
of the Spirit against the conscience, both of myself and also of most of
my people, against my sense of duty, against the Word of God, against the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ-because I would not suppress this at once
with a high hand-for these reasons am I called in question before you. "
This is a matter of high import; this is a matter of great concernment.
Mlay the Lord give me grace to open it in order; may the Lord also give me
strength to sustain the burden of so great a cause; and may the Lord give
me wisdom in my words, that I may utter nothing which may be a
stumbling-block to the least of these little ones; that I may give no
offense-no needless offense-to any of His enemies; but that I may order my
discourse in the same manner as my Lord would have done, standing in my
room. Yea, do thou, Lord Jesus, speak through thy servant, and enable him
to set forth the very truth of God. "That I may lay this case rightly
before this court, and in. order, this method presents itself to my mind:
"First, As I am to justify the thing which I have done, it is needfal to
show the grounds on which I did it; and to show the grounds on which I did
it, it is needful to show the thing in the Word of God, which I believe
God has given us. This is the first thing I must do; for even the heathen
could say' that the song and the discourse should begin from God.' Next,
It is needful that I show you that the thing which we have received is the
very thing contained in the Word of God, and held out to the hope and
expectation of the Church of God —yea, of every baptized man. Thirdly,
That I show you how I have ordered it, as the minister of the Church; and
show also that the way in which I have ordered it is according to the Word
of God, and in nothing contradictory to the standards of the Church of
Scotland. Fourthly, To speak a little concerning the use of the gifts.
And, finally, To show how we stand as parties, and how the case stands
before this court; and then I shall leave it to the judgment of you, and
of all here present. "I read it in the Gospels-and it is in all the four
Gospels-that John the Baptist spoke the following words:' I, indeed,
baptize you with water unto repentance; but He that cometh after me is
mightier than I, whose shoes I am-not worthy to bear; He shall baptize you
with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' Now, in the beginning of the Acts of
the Apostles, I find it thus written:'And being assembled together with
them, He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but
wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of me;
for John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy
Ghost not many days hence.' We have here this message from God by the
mouth of the Baptist, that Jesus was He who should baptize with the Holy
Ghost; that that was the end of His coming; and we have here also the
declaration from the mouth of Jesus Himself, after His resurrection, that
He had not done that in the days of His flesh, neither
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APPENDICES. between His resurrection and ascension, but that He was to do
it not many days hence, when He was ascended into glory. The baptism of
the Holy Ghost, therefore, is a thing which was not by Jesus in His
ministry while on earth accomplished, nor by His teaching while on earth
accomplished; but it was accomplished when He had ascended up on high, not
many days thereafter. On the day of Pentecost, as we see in the second of
Acts, was it accomplished; and here is the description of it:'And when the
day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one
place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty
wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting. And there appeared
unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them;
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.' Here is the baptism
with the Holy Ghost which Jesus promised to them when He should go to the
Father; and the way in which it was manifested was the speaking with other
tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. " Now Peter, when preaching on
that occasion to the people, said to them these words:'Therefore, being by
the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the
promise of the Holy Ghost;' that is, what he directed their attention to
when he said,'Wait for the promise of the Father, and ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost;' being, he says,'by the right hand of God exalted,
and having received this promise, He hath shed forth this that ye now see'
in these men' and hear' in these men, speaking with other tongues, and
magnifying God. " The effect of this discourse on the people is thus
described:'Now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart,
and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,
what shall we do?' Peter having said to them that Jesus, who had just
ascended to the Father, had now shed down the gift of the Holy Ghost on
His Church, which ye now see and hear, says to all people,'Repent and be
baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost;' the same thing
He had been discoursing of, and to which their attention had been drawn by
the outpouring of the Spirit, and speaking in the midst of them. And if ye
were in like manner exercised, when ye hear in the Church, speaking with
tongues and magnifying Godand ye never hear them do any thing else in my
Church than speaking with tongues and magnifying God-ye would hear the
word of truth saying to yourselves,' Repent and be baptized, every one of
you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gifts of the Holy
Ghost.' We have all been baptized, and it is our privilege to be baptized
with the Holy Ghost and with fire; otherwise Peter held out a false
message, and preached a false Gospel, and connected a false benefit with
baptism; for he promised it distinctly to all. If Christian baptism be
that which Peter on the day of Pentecost set forth, preached, and
ministered, every baptized person is privileged to expect, and ought to
possess, and, through faith, shall receive, the gift of the Holy Ghost;'
for the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all;' not to this
generation only, but to another, and another, and another; for, it is
added,' to them that are afar off,' Gentiles as well as Jews; Jews at
hand, Gentiles afar off; yea,'even to as many,' without exception,'as the
Lord our God shall call.' Ye are called; ye are called by the ministry of
the Gospel. We are all called; we are all baptized with the baptism which
Peter preached; for there is no other. Jesus had commanded Peter and the
apostles to go forth into all nations, and preach the Gospel to every
creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost. Peter obeyed that commandment, and, in obeying it, said,' Ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is unto you, and to
your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our
God shall call.' But Peter's words are only a quotation, a part of the
text of his discourse. The text is taken
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C. 573 from Joel; and in the conclusion of his discourse, he embodies the
text to his people, referring them to their own prophets; for he was
speaking to them that believed the prophets. Peter knew himself to be a
man of no reputation, and despised among them. He could say nothing of his
own authority. He therefore directed their attention to their own
prophets, and he referred them to the prophecy of Joel, as containing the
promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, and assured them, in the words of
Joel, that it should be fulfilled in those days. Now, what is the promise
of Joel?'And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my
spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams, ~your young men shall see visions; and
also upon the servants, and upon the handmaidens in those days' (twice
over you have here repeated daughters and handmaidens)'will I pour out my
Spirit.' He taketh the first words of that text,'Your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy,' and tells them,'the promise is to you and to
your children;' and he taketh the last words of it,'As many as the Lord
our God shall call;' and so, knitting them both in one, he projects it on
baptism, and binds the prophecy of Joel to baptism. And I say that every
baptized person is privileged t;o possess this gift, and is responsible
for it, and will possess it through faith in God; and only does not
possess it because he hath rejected the promise of God, and turneth away
from it. I say it is knit unto baptism-it is the rubric of baptism. And no
minister baptizeth in the manner Peter baptized who doth not hold out to
the baptized person not only the remission of sins, but also the gift of
the Holy Ghost, as set forth in that promise of Joel, which is to' as many
as the Lord your God shall call.' Brethren,. this is for the conscience;
it is not for the members of the body, for the feet, nor for the hands,
but for the conscience of men. " Now, sir, it is about four or five years
ago, very soon after we entered the National Scotch Church-I think
immediately before the first sacrament therein; for the last thing we did
in the Caledonian Church was to administer the Lord's Supper-and
immediately befoie the next ordinance in November, that I was called, I
felt called upon to open to the people the subject of the sacraments, in
order to prepare them with due knowledge for sitting down at the Lord's
table; and so far back as that time I opened to them what I now open in
your hearing, and in the hearing of this court; and I gave it as my
judgment before them.all, that every one of us is responsible for the
baptism of the Holy Ghost, in all the fullness in which it was
administered by Jesus on the day of Pentecost, and in all the fullness
contained in that name of Baptizer with the Holy Ghost. "' What would ye
say if any one were to stand up and reason thus:' Yea, John the Baptist
said of Jesus, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the
world. No doubt Jesus was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the
world. He was so for one or two generations, but he is so no longer.' And
what do ye say now to those who reason in this manner, and who affirm,
after John the Baptist announced the same Jesus as He who baptizeth with
the Holy Ghost, and after Jesus Himself had turned the attention of His
disciples to the thing that was to be fulfilled not many days hence, as
the baptism with the Holy Ghost (and when that baptism took place, it was
with speaking with tongues and prophesying on the day of Pentecost; and
Peter, thereupon, baptizing with water, gave the promise of it to the
whole Church)-what say ye to those who say,'Oh, yes, he was the baptizer
with the Holy Ghost, in that kind for one century or two, but he is no
longer so now?' What do I say to them but that they are deniers of the
name of Jesus? And if they repent not, now that Jesus is manifesting
Himself by this name, His judgments will alight on their heads. "This was
several years before any manifestations appeared; and as the Lord or.
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APPENDICES. dered, that book containing the Homilies on Baptism was
printed, and was before the Church several years before any manifestations
appeared, clearly showing you that it was a conviction of my own soul,
gathered from the Word of God, and preached publicly in the whole
congregation, and the whole congregation entreated faithfully to give heed
to it. Now I need not go into other scriptures in order to confirm what I
have now said, because, a thing coming forth fiom the mouth of the
Baptist, and promised by the mouth of Jesus, and sealed up in an ordinance
by Peter, needeth not to be confirmed. You might as well take the passage
in the sixth chapter of John, where our Lord, speaking of the eating of
His flesh in order to everlasting life, and which He knit up in the
ordinance of the Lord's Supper, saying,' Take, eat, this is my body'-you
might as well require that that discourse in the sixth chapter of John,
sealed up in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, needeth more scriptures
to confirm it, as that the proclamation of Christ's name by the Baptist as
Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, the substantiation of it by Christ Himself
on the day of Pentecost, and the knitting of it' up in the'ordinance of
baptism, needeth confirmation. But, if confirmation be wanting, I.have the
book before me, and from end to end there is not one passage in which the
gifts of the Holy Ghost are mentioned where they are not mentioned as the
property of the whole Church, as the blessing of the whole Church, as
needful to the growth of the whole Church, and as designed to continue
until that which is perfect is come-to continue until we shall see eye to
eye and face to face. And again, in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, it is
said, these gifts were to continue'until we all arrive at the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ.' Christ ascending up on high gave'
to some apostles, to some prophets, to some evangelists, to some pastors
and teachers,' giving them all alike, without alteration or
reservation,'for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body'of Christ, until we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.' "' How
any man dareth to take out of this passage apostles, evangelists,
prophets, and to say that they were only intended for a season, but that
the pastor and the teacher were intended always to continue, I never have
been able to find a reason. But I hold it to be'a daring infraction'of the
integrity of the Word of God, and permit me to say, it was erroneously
alleged of the Church of Scotland that she denieth this doctrine. On
referring to the Second Book of Discipline, which I hold in my hand
(whereof you ought not to be ignorant, seeing that I have referred to it
in the documents), it is distinctly said that though these gifts do not
now exist in the Church, they might be revived when occasion served; and
that now they have ceased in the Church, except it shall-please God to
stir some of them up again. Who can say that it hath not now pleased'God
to stir them up again? But now at this part of the case, if ye intend to
act as attesters of the standards of the Church of Scotland merely, and
not as attesters and ministers of the.Word of. God, I ask of you to say
whether the time in which we live,'when anti-Christ and infidelity are
coming forth in all their strength, when wickedness rages on all hands,
when the name of Jesus is cast out by the kings and potentates of the
earth, and when monarchs are set up to rule in their own names instead of
ruling in His name-I ask if these are not those extraordinary times in
which it may please the Lord to raise them up again? But passing that by,
it is said they were bestowed for.the perfecting of the saints-for the
work of the ministry-for the edifying of the body of Christ. Do not the
saints need to be perfected? The work of the ministry needeth to be
wrought. The body *needeth to be edified, and we are not yet come to the
measure of the stature of Christ; and I believe the Lord will seal
apostles; I believe that the Lord bath sealed
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APPENDIX
C. 575 prophets; and I believe that the Lord will seal evangelists, and
pastors, and teachers, in the power of the Spirit, if only the Church,
laying hold of the Word of God, and forsaking the traditions of men; if
only the saints of God, believing and establishing themselves on the
rock,' which is the word of Jesus, and pleading the name of Jesus, and
believing on Him as Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, as well as the Lamb of
God that taketh away the sins of the world; if one half, if one tenth, if
one hundredth part -of those before me will with confidence look unto Him,
and call upon Him, they will find Him faithful-they will find His name to
be a strong tower, to which the righteous runneth and is safe. And it will
not be long, whether you consider it or not, whether you will hear or
whether you will forbear —it will not be long until the Lord, who hath
sealed prophets, will also seal apostles, and evangelists, and every other
gift in His Church. This is the thing, sir, which we expected-which we
prayed for in the National Scotch Church privately before this time last
year; and publicly, about this time last year, we met together about two
weeks before the meeting of the General Assembly, to pray that the General
Assembly might be guided in judgment by the Lord, the Head of the Church;'
and we added thereto prayers for the present low estate of the Church; and
we cried unto the Lord for apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and
teachers, anointed with the Holy Ghost, the gift of Jesus; because we saw
it written in God's Word that these are the appointed ordinances for
edifying the body of Jesus. We continued in prayer, we met morning after
morning, at half past six every morning, and the Lord was not long in
hearing and answering our prayers. He sealed first one, then another, then
another; and gave them, first, enlargement of spirit in their own
devotions when their souls were lifted up to God, and they were closed
with him in great nearness; He then'gave them to pray in a tongue, which
Paul said he was wont to do more than they all:'I bless God, speaking
wiith tongues, more than you all.' And Paul, speaking of praying in an
unknown tongue, says:'If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but
my understanding is unfruitful;' just as, in the evidence of yesterday,
the witness declared that, in praying in a tongue, he enjoyed closer
communion with God than in praying with the understanding. Paul said, when
he came into the congregation, it was for edification of the body of
Christ; and he would not then pray in a tongue, because it was out of
place; for they understood not the tongue, therefore he prayed both in
spirit and in the understanding. But in his private devotion, blessing God
in his eucharistical services, he gave thanks, speaking in tongues, more
than they all; but in the Church, as contradistinguished from his private
devotions, he would rather speak five words with the understanding than
ten thousand in an unknown tongue, because then it was not for
edification; for he would, in the latter'case, be to them a barbarian, for
no one would understand him unless an interpreter were also present. Just
as it was with Paul, so with these persons, for the first time in their
private devotions; when they were wrapt up nearest to God, the Spirit took
them, and made them to speak sometimes song, sometimes words, in a tongue;
and by degrees, according as they sought more and more untoGod, the gift
became perfected, until they were moved to speak in tongues, even in the
presence of others. In this stage I suffered them not to speak in the
Church, according to the canon of the apostle; and even in private, in my
own presence, I permitted it not; but I heard that it had been done. I
would not have rebuked it; I would have sympathized tenderly with the
person who was carried in the Spirit and lifted up; but in the Church I
would not have permitted it. In process of time, about fourteen days
after, the gift perfected itself, so that they were made to speak in
tongues, and prophesy the Word in English, for exhortation, edification,
and comfort, which is the proper definition of prophecy, as testified by
one of the witnesses.
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APPENDICES. "Now, when we had received this into the Church, in answer to
our prayers, it became me, as the minister of the Church, to try that
which we had received. I repeat it; it became me, as minister of the
Church, and not another; and my authority for this you will find in the
second chapter of Revelations, where the Lord Jesus, writing to the Angel
of the Church of Ephesus, speaks thus to him:'I know thy works, and thy
labor, and thy patience; and how thou canst not bear them which are evil;
and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not; and
hast found them liars.' Here the Lord Jesus, the Head of the Church,
commended the Angel of the Church of Ephesus, the head of that Church, in
whose place I stand in my Church, and in whose place no other standeth
(the elders and deacons have their place, but this belongeth to the angel
or minister of the Church), and the Lord commendeth him for trying them
which say they are apostles, and are not. Therefore, to me, as minister of
the Church, watching over the souls of the people, it belongeth to try
every one who says he is commissioned of Jesus, be he prophet, apostle, or
evangelist, pastor or teacher. I, as responsible for those souls, must
search into the matter, and it was on my responsibility if I allowed a
wolf to come into the fold; and if I keep out one who is a prophet,
apostle, or evangelist, and prevent him from exercising the gift given him
for the edifying, not of one part of the Church, but of the whole Church
of God, I do it at my peril. I dare not do otherwise; because the Lord
Jesus, the only Head of the Church, in writing these seven epistles to the
angels of the seven churches in Asia, in order to guide them, commendeth
the Angel of the Church of Ephesus for having taken upon him this duty;
and I, as the minister of the Lord Jesus, dare not disobey him, though the
loss of my head, of my life, of a hundred lives, were the consequence. I
dared not willingly disobey him, and set to all my people, and to all
authorities, an example of disobedience. I was necessitated to obey him,
though my life were taken. Therefore, when the Lord sent us what professed
to be prophets, what we had prayed for, what the Lord had given in answer
to prayer-when there appeared the sign of the prophet speaking with
tongues, and prophesying and magnifying God, and what appeared to be
true-I dared not shrink from my plan of trying them, and putting them to
the proof; and, if found not so, preventing them, and if they were so,
permitting them; yea, and giving thanks to Jesus for having answered our
prayers, and sent us the ordinance of prophesying, which is expressly said
to be for the edification of the Church; for it is said,'He that
prophesieth edifieth the Church.' Moreover, I learned that this duty doth
devolve upon me, the angel and pastor of the Church, from the same second
chapter of Revelations; where, writing to the Angel of the Church in
Thyatira, he says,'Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee,
because thou sufferest that woman, Jezebel, which calleth herself a
prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants.' Here we have the proof
that there were true prophetesses in the Church. The same thing is
referred to in Joel, ii., 28. And again in the second chapter of Acts,
where we are told that Philip the Evangelist had four daughters, virgins,
which did prophesy. And in the second chapter of 1st Corinthians there are
instructions for women to pray and prophesy in a comely manner in the
Church. In the Church at Thyatira, this woman, Jezebel, calling herself a
prophetess, was permitted to teach. A prophetess may not teach: to teach
belongeth to a man; it is an office of authority. A prophetess may
prophesy, speaking by the Holy Ghost; and none of those persons
prophesying in my Church have ever spoken by any power except by the power
of the Holy Ghost, as I believe. But Jezebel was suffered to teach in the
Church, and also to seduce the servants of the Lord, contrary to the
canons of Paul, given in 1 Cor., ii., and 1 Timothy, ii. I produce this
second commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ, your Head, the Head of the
Church, my Ilead, and the Head of
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C. 577 every man; whom no man, as he values his own salvation, dares, on
any account, willingly to disobey. This commandment of Jesus reproveth the
angel of that Church for refusing to do that which was his duty, and
permitting this woman, calling herself a prophetess, to teach. So that
here have I one commended for fulfilling this duty, and one reproved for
not fulfilling it; and I want no more evidence to show that it was my
duty, as the servant of Jesus, to fulfill His commandment; and I want no
other authority than His command, whom I must not, whom I dare not, whom I
will not disobey, to make trial of the persons who have these gifts; and I
proceeded to that trial. " The first thing toward the trial was to hear
them prophesy before myself, and so I did it. The Lord, in His providence,
gave me ample opportunity in private prayer-meetings, of which many were
in the congregation established, of hearing them speaking with tongues,
and prophesying; and it was so ordered by Providence that every person
whom I heard was known to myself, so that I had this double test, first,
of their private walk and conversation, and, second, of hearing the thing
prophesied. The private walk and conversation were, as far as I knew,
according to godliness; they waited on the ordinances daily; they were all
duly baptized; they were all members of Christ, and therefore fully
privileged to expect baptism of the Holy Ghost; they were all in full
communion, though not all in my Church; but my Church is only a part of
the Church of Christ, which condemneth none and separateth from none. It
was not the custom of the Primitive Church in the apostolic times, that,
when one or two brethren came from another church, they were not permitted
to speak or to exhort the brethren until they had sat down with them at
the Lord's table; for our Lord Jesus Himself, wherever He went, spake in
the synagogues; and in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas, though
they were only known as brethren, went into the synagogues and exhorted.
And I hold it to be contrary to the constitution of the Protestant Church
that any member or minister of one church, being in full communion with
it, should not be admissible into full communion with another. A member,
for instance, of the Church of England is in full communion with the
Scotch Church, both in respect to Baptism and the Lord's Supper. It is so
by the Acts of the Assembly. I can not tell you the express date of the
Act, but it comes between the time of the Revolution, 1692, and the date
of 1720. I can not charge my memory with the exact date; but it is a short
Act, setting forth that the member of another communion, coming into the
bosom of the Church of Scotland, is admissible to all the ordinances, if
his walk is according to godliness; for, as it is generally said, we ought
rather to use diligence to draw them over to us, than we to go to them.
These persons were members of the Church of Christ, walking in His
commandments and ordinances blameless; nay, distinguished for acts and
labors of love in their own churches; in fact, there was only one such;
and another, though not admitted to membership, was under examination
previous to communion. First, they were of blameless walk and
conversation, and in full communion with the Church of Christ. Second, in
private prayer-meetings, where they were accustomed to exercise the gift
of utterance, I could discern nothing contrary to sound doctrine, but
every thing for edification, exhortation, and comfort. There was the sign
of the unknown tongue, and prophesying for edification, exhortation, and
comfort; and, beside these, there is no other outward and visible test to
which they might be brought. Having these before me, I was still very much
afraid of introducing it into the Church, and was exceedingly burdened in
conscience for some weeks. Look at the condition in which I was placed. I
had sat at the head of the Church, praying that these gifts might be
poured out on the Church; believing in the Lord's faithfulness, and that I
was praying the prayer of faith, and that O o
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APPENDICES. He had poured out the gifts in the Church in answer to our
prayers. Was I to disbelieve what in faith I had been praying for, and
which we had all been praying for? When it came, I had every opportunity
of proving it. I had put it to the proof according to the Word of God, and
I found, so far as I was able to discern, that it is the thing written in
the Scriptures, and into the faith of which we had been baptized. Having
found this, I was in a great strait between two opinions, and much
burdened. God knoweth for certain days, nay, even weeks, my burden I could
disclose to no one. A great burden it was, for I felt it was my duty to
act; and I feared, if I were to go seeking counsel of others, and any were
to say,' Do not introduce it into the Church,' then I should be putting
myself into a strait between my obedience to the Lord and my inclination
to follow the counsel of wise men. In this state I remained some time; and
I need not tell the leadings of Providence, which led me, at length, to
determine; but it was very much the testimony of my own heart. In the
morning meeting the Spirit burst out in the mouth of that witness whom you
examined yesterday; and, several times in one day, the voice~of the Spirit
was, that it was quenched and restrained in the Church. I felt this very
burdensome to me, and this conviction came at once to my heart: It belongs
to you to open the door; you have the power of the keys; it is you that
are restraining and hindering it. I reflected on it all that day, and next
morning I came to the Church. After prayers I rose up, and said in the
midst of them all,' I can not any longer be a party to hinder that which I
consider to be the voice of the Holy Ghost from being heard in the Church.
I feel I have too long deferred, and I pray you to give heed while I read
out these passages, as my authority and the commandment of the Lord
concerning the prophets;' and I read, therefore, these passages, 1 Cor.,
xiv., 23:'If, therefore, the whole Church be come together into one place,
and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are unlearned, or
unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?' The apostle was here
writing of speaking with tongues, in contradistinction to prophesying;
that is to say, speaking nothing but the unknown tongue; for what should
it profit unless there be an interpreter? He is not speaking of what we
have; that which we have is one fifth or one tenth in tongue, and the rest
in prophesying. He is taking the distinction between speaking with tongues
and prophesying. No one in our Church could say the person speaking is
mad, because he doth not utter, perhaps, more than two minutes or one
minute in tongue, and then he begins to prophesy in English for the
edification, exhortation, and comfort of all: the one is the sign of
inspiration that it is the power of the Spirit; the other is the thing
which the Spirit would give forth for the edification of the Church.
"Sometimes it comes forth without the sign, but generally it is otherwise;
for I think I have observed in the Church, when many are present who
disbelieve, or doubt, or mock, the sign is given in great power; but it is
otherwise ordered in a company of persons believing the calling of the
prophet, when the sign is not given, but the word of prophecy comes out
simply.: But I have observed, if the word of prophecy is hard to be
received, the sign is given, even in the company of those strong in the
faith; yea, I have seen it occur more than once that the sign has been
given, and then the word in English follows, and then the sign is again
repeated. I have noticed that in this case something is added hard to be
received, or, perhaps, a rebuke to some one present, or something hard for
the will of the party to receive; for the Spirit speaketh to the
conscience. Well, I read out this passage:' But if all prophesy, and there
come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all,
he is judged of all, and thus:are the secrets of his heart made manifest;
and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God
is among you of a truth.' Then it is said,'When the whole'Church cometh
together into one place,'
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C. 579 they may'all prophesy, one by one;' and it is added,'Let the
prophets speak, two or three, and let the others judge,' and discern the
things which they prophesy, and try the spirit that it is done by; whether
the prophet, through carelessness or want of holiness, be overtaken of any
temptation, even as the witness examined yesterday did declare before you
all, without being questioned, in the honest purity and simplicity of his
heart, that he once was made to rebuke me in a manner which he believed
was not by the Spirit of God; and this he learned by another prophet's
discerning; and after waiting on the Lord, at the end of two days it was
made manifest, agreeably to this:'Let the prophets speak two or three, and
let the others discern;' and, farther,' If any thing be revealed to
another sitting by, let the first hold his peace.' Now I beg your
attention to this passage, as it bears much on the case attempted to be
made out against me, and yet not against me, but against the voice of the
Spirit in the Church. "And here let me say, they are not interruptions,
though they are called interruptions, of the service of the Church; for we
are told,' If any thing be revealed to another sitting by, let the first
hold his peace.' And if, by the Spirit, any thing be revealed to any one
sitting by, though I be engaged in praying-though I be engaged in
pieaching-I am required to hold my peace, because I might be preaching
falsehood, which the Spirit of the Lord might wish to defend the
congregation from. Jesus is the Head of the congregation, not I; I am only
His deputy, and the prophets are His voice. You are very ignorant of the
Old Testament if you know not that the prophet is the voice of God to
kings and to princes; he is the voice of Jesus to His Church; and if I be
speaking any thing contrary to the mind of Jesis, shall not He, the Head
of the Church, have liberty by His prophets to tell the congregation so,
and guard them from error? If I be praying in error or in a wicked
spirit-for a man may be erroneous in his prayers; a man may curse and
blaspheme in his prayer; and if I do so, shall not the Lord Jesus have
power in His own Church, thein and there, to make manifest the error, that
the congregation be not poisoned thereby? If a father saw improper food
put upon the plate of his child, which the child should not eat, would he
not step in and take the morsel out of his mouth? And shall the Lord
Jesus, the master of the house, not be permitted to step in, at any time,
and prevent such food from being partaken of by the children whom He hath
purchased with His own blood? He shall in my church. He shall in my
church, so long as He honors me by permitting me to be the minister of it.
Call it not interruption; ye speak it in ignorance-ye understand it not,
and you examine not into it-and the Lord forgiveth it. Take heed lest your
ignorance be not willful. The complainants have mostly withdrawn their
ears from it, and would not hear it; they would not put themselves to the
pains of examining it, but would beat, with the high hand of a trust-deed,
the minister of Jesus from his place, and the Lord Jesus from his place
also. " Moderator. "Order! I will not allow any one to say that we beat
the Lord Jesus from his place. We hear Mr. Irving from a matter of
tenderness and courtesy, and he must not use this language toward us."
Mai. Irving. "Thething stated was a truth." flis Solicitor protested
against the interruption. Mr. Irving. "I have spoken the truth, and
nothing but the truth, and God knows it; and whether the truth Should not
be spoken, He knoweth also; but be it, be it,so. Well, then, I read this
passage, and also the passage which concerneth the comely way in which
women should prophesy and pray in the Church, which is thius written in 1
Cor., xi., 4-10:'Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered,
dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with
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APPENDICES. her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head, for that is even all
one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also
be shorn; but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her
be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he
is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man....
For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head, because of the
angels.' The woman having power on her head is a sign of authority,
because of the angels of the Church, in reference to their office. I know
there has been a difference of opinion in this matter, and that the
passage has been confronted with that passage in 1 Cor., xiv., 34, 35:'Let
your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them
to speak,' etc.; and another passage in 1 Tim., ii., 11, 12, to the same
effect. Now it has been said we have gainsayed these passages, and that we
have interpreted them in a way that would never have been thought of but
for this which has occurred. Now, to say nothing of the old commentators,
I give you, among the moderns, the opinion of Locke, that master of exact
interpretation, though not of sound doctrine; yet he was the master of
logic, which is the science of sound words. I also refer you to Scott,
whom the whole evangelical body in England consider the pattern of
commentators. I refer, also, to Brown, who is looked upon in Scotland as
Scott is in England. These three commentators have all judged of these
passages as I have judged of them, namely, that the two latter refer to
women speaking by their own power and strength, the former to women
speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost;'the one not tobe permitted, the
other not to be prevented. I have these three, than whom none stand higher
in their respective schools: Locke in the Arminian school, Scott in the
Evangelical school, and Brown, universally consulted in the Scottish
churches; and all these interpret them as I have done. No one can say that
we have strained the Scriptures to suit our purposes. Grotius also concurs
in the same view, than whom no one, at the period of the Reformation,
stood in such reputation among the remonstrants. And almost all the
interpreters in the primitive Church held the same views, and the practice
was almost invariably continued in the first ages of the Church, and may
be traced till the time of Cyprian, when women, and even children, were
accustomed to prophesy in the Church by the Holy Ghost; as it is written
in the Psalms,'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected
praise.' And Cyprian, who was Bishop of Carthage, thought it not beneath
him to send the things spoken by children.in the'Church, by the power of
the Spirit, to the Presbyteries of his diocese for their instruction. Now,
having read these passages, therefore, I said to the people,'I stand here'
before you, after my conscience has been burdened with it for weeks, and I
can no longer forbid it, but do, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
permit that every one, who has received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and is
moved by the Holy Ghost, shall have liberty to speak.' " It pleased the
Lord at that meeting to sanction this by His own approval; while I was
reading, the Spirit of the Lord spoke in Mr. Taplin, who appeared
yesterday as a witness, and said,'Let them prophesy, but let it be under
authority.' And at the same meeting, both Mrs. Cardale and Miss E. Cardale
spoke in the Spirit, with tongues and prophesying, rejoicing at what had
been done. Now observe, according to the commandment of Jesus, I took to
myself the privilege and responsibility of trying the prophets in private
first, before permitting them to speak in the Church. I then gave to the
Church the opportunity of fulfilling its duty; for it belongs not to the
pastor merely, but to every man, to try the spirits; as it is written in
Mat-. thew, that our Lord, when speaking to His disciples in the mount,'
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but
inwardly they are ravening wolves; ye shall know them by their fruits.' -
And I say, therefore, it is the bounden
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C. 581 duty of every one, when the minister puts forth any person before
the congregation whom, having tried, he believeth to speak by the Spirit
of God, to be on their guard, and beware of false prophets, and to try
them. Moreover, Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, declares of some who in
the last days should give heed to seducing spirits, and he warneth the
Church against being insnared by them. In like manner, John also, in his
first catholic epistle, gives instruction to try spirits, whether they be
of God, and gives the rule whereby they might be tried:'Every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus is come in the flesh is not of God; and
whosoever denieth this is anti-Christ.' "It was my duty, therefore, in
obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, who ever ruleth all churches, and
without whom any Church is nothing but a synagogue of Satan, after trying
the spirits, to put them forth to the people, that they might be tried by
them. I put the prophets forth at the morning exercises of the Church; and
I made it known to the people at prayer, in preaching, and in all ways,
and invited the people to come and witness for themselves; and so the
thing continued. I had not yet introduced it into the great congregation,
permitting, I should suppose, four or five weeks for probation by the
Church, and was still reluctant-for I erred on the side of reluctance; and
seeing the spirit of many of the congregation, that they viewed with
dislike and suspicion the whole subject. I waited, and it was not until
silence was broken, in spite of me, that I spoke in the full congregation
concerning the duty of its being then heard; and that day, after the
speaking by which the congregation was thrown into a good deal of
distress, I left my ordinary subject; for although it was attempted to be
instructed in evidence yesterday that I set myself to discourse on one
subject exclusively, and fed my people on that, my custom is to go
regularly on, reading, preaching, and lecturing; but when the Church was
tried in this way, I felt it my duty to take up the subject as it occurs
in 1 Corinthians, xiv., to prevent their souls being snared by Satan, and
exhorted them to try the spirits according to the rules there laid down. I
am ashamed and grieved to say that, from that time forward, several of the
trustees entered not the church any more, notwithstanding all I could say,
to hear and make trial whether it were the work of God or not, but set it
down at once as a thing that ought not to be, and then left it. At the
same time I appear here, not to complain against any one, but merely to
state the truth to the court; that the Presbytery may be rightly informed,
I am willing to substantiate these things, if the Presbytery desire it,
from the evidence of the persons sworn. "After the speaking was thus
forced on the congregation, I felt I could no longer resist it; but in the
evening I rose in my place, and said,'If the worship of God should be
again added to by those speaking with tongues and prophesying-for that is
the right word, for it is the addition of an ordinance of prophesying-that
they should understand it to be; not the word of man, but what I believed
it to be, the Word of the Spirit of God,' and it was added to. From that
time I felt it my duty, in obedience to the great Head of the Church, to
take order that it should not be prevented, but encouraged; I claim the
word encouraged; and I took all lawful means in the midst of the
congregation to encourage it, and did so in obedience to the Lord Jesus
Christ, who had given:this precious gift; not for naught, but for the
edifying of the Church, which is His body; and I would think myself a most
unworthy pastor if, after receiving a gift, I did not lay it out to use,
and encourage it to be used for the good of the people. I did it in
obedience to Jesus, for the good of the flock; and if you want testimony,
I shall pledge myself that I will produce five hundred men and women who
shall come forward voluntarily, and testify in this court that there have
been prophets raised up in our Church whose words have been
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APPENDICES. most edifying, yea, like a marrow and fatness to their souls.
These five hundred persons, walking in the commandments and ordinance of
the Lord, will freely come forward on any day you will appoint, and
declare that it hath been the most blessed thing to their souls, next to
the ministry of the Word and ordinance. And thus these were the steps I
took for proving it-for all this comes under the head of probation-first,
by myself, privately; then, not in public, but at the morning service,
where all might have attended if they would; and then before all the
congregation; and still it is continued, for the probation is not yet
done. Many in the Church have not yet received full probation of it; and
them I teach to wait on the Lord, and they shall receive full
satisfaction; for I believe that the Lord tenderly regards the doubts of
every one of his children;'for the bruised reed will He not break, nor the
smoking flax will He not quench;' and I believe there is not a weak member
of Christ's Church waiting humbly and sincerely on Him, to whom He will
not give conviction. I have never made it a test in my church, although,
as a man preaching to his'congregation, I have seen it my duty to declare
the truth concerning it; for the Lord Jesus is very tender and very
loving; and if a man will but turn aside, and see what this great thing
is, he will be taught and fed of God. If there be any of my flock here
present, let them take assurance, as a consolation to their souls. On the
other hand, I believe, that if men turn away from, and harden themselves
against it, it will prove to them that which Isaiah said it was sent for.
It is only mentioned once in the Old Testament (speaking with tongues);
and notice what the Prophet Isaiah, in the 28th chapter, says it was sent
for:'Whom shall He teach knowledge? and whom shall He make to understand
doctrine?' The high-minded? No. Men who are proud in their own conceit?
No. Men who have enough, and vant no more, saying,'Having the ordinances
and institutions of the Gospel, we have enough?' No. Let the prophet
answer:'Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts;'
babes; those that feel they need much; those that are weak, like a weaned
child; for' precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon
line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.' As you speak to
a child, so should it be;' and so it is in prophesying; it is precept upon
precept, line upon line, discourse not regularly built up. That is the
reason why the learned of the world, those that are not babes, despise it;
because it is not built up on argument or reasoning; not set forth in
eloquent language, but in simple, pure, unadulterated milk; not cooked in
the kitchen, but cooked in the body of the'parent, fresh from the body of
Jesus, by the Spirit of Jesus, coming down direct from Him, as milk of the
children, which, indeed, the pastor may prepare, and serve out to the
Church; and which, in dependence on my Master, I have endeavored to
prepare and serve out, according to the taste of the people-that is, as
they can bear it.'For with stammering lips'-ah'! who can bear that?-'and
with men of other tongues will I speak to this people.' And He hath thus
spoken in the midst of us. Paul quotes this of the gift of tongues given
to the Gentile Church; on the day of Pentecost it was sealed to the
Gentile Church. lOh, and he says,'This is the rest wherewith ye may cause
the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing; yet they would not hear.'
Though it be rest and refreshing which is preached by it continually, yet
they would not hear, and wherefore? that they may go and fall backward,
and be broken, and snared, and taken.' There is another end of it, and it
is for a rest to the weary; but for those who are not children, and think
they are learned enough, and do not feel their lowly estate, to them it is
given' that they may go and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and
taken.' And it will prove so to this generation. " Now ye have heard the
method I took to prove that it was the thing contained
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C. 583 in the Scriptures that we had received; first, the walk and
conversation of the persons; second, by trying it from the words of
Scripture, which says that the sign is the speaking with tongues, and the
prophesy is for edification, exhortation, and comfort; third, by the
consciousness of the Spirit within myself, bringing the conviction to my
own heart; fourth, by submitting it to all the people. And I believe the
effect of such probation is this-that the snares of Satan have been
detected, and that that which, if left alone, and not taken into the
Church, Satan would have prevailed against, hath prevailed against Satan;
for we ought to remember the prophets are not infallible; for they are
directed to speak by two or three, that the rest may discern; and by
bringing it before the Church, the spirit in the prophets has discerned
when the false prophets spoke, and when the flesh spoke; ay, and the very
members of the Church, also, endued with the Holy Ghost, have been able to
discern it. I believe it will always be so. Jesus hath not given up His
place to the prophet any more than to the minister; and He hath let them
know that prophecy is a fallible ordinance, as well as the ordinance of
the ministry; and it is only by the congregation, and the prophets, and
the minister abiding in Jesus in all obedience, in the light of Jesus as
he is in the light, in the love of one another, and in the love of God -it
is only thus that the minister can be preserved from erring, or the
prophets, or the people; for the minister is not lord over the heritage,
nor is the prophet the Word of God to the heritage; but the lord of the
heritage is Jesus, and the Word of God to the heritage is this book;
neither are the people rulers over the minister to say'You shall not do
this,' which the Lord requireth of him, nor the people rulers over the
prophets to say the prophet shall not utter what the Lord giveth him to
utter; but these, like the members of the body-7the head, the lips, the
hands, the feet-are all bound together in mutual respect to one another,
and by their mutual respect and service to one another they are all
preserved in health and comfort, provided the life be in them all, which
is Jesus. Therefore I say, this method of proceeding God has shown to be
good; for He hath shown my judgment not to be enough for the prophets; and
even the congregation, on whom the Spirit of the Lord is, have detected
what I could not detect; and it is not that any one office should be
prevented from exercising their functions, or prophecy, or tongues,
because they are not infallible, but that one and all, according to the
orders of their Great Captain, in this book laid down, and in their
various posts, united together in brotherly love and amity, might fulfill
their kindly, and dutiful offices one toward another. Thus the Church of
God is built up and flourishes. If the people rise up against the
minister, or the minister lord it over the people; or if either rises up
against the prophets, and puts them down, then the golden cord of love is
broken, and the Church must suffer. In every case where love is preserved,
it will be found that all are necessary, that all going on together will
be preserved in unity, and make increase of the Church. So much for the
second head. " I make no apology for the length of time I have occupied,
for eight hours have been allowed to the accusers, and I am the party most
deeply interested in the case, and I trust you will bear with me in
patience. The third thing to which I referred is the manner of ordering it
in the Church; this I have in a great manner anticipated; but still, as
the point of the complaint standeth here, I think it good to attend to it
carefully. It is complained by the trustees of the National Scotch Church,
in discharge of the duty imposed on them by the trust-deed, and which is
the foundation of their complaint, First, that I have allowed the worship
of the Church to be interrupted by persons speaking, who are neither
ordained ministers nor licentiates of the Church of Scotland. Now, with
respect to the ordering of it, which is here complained against as a
violation of the. trust-deed, and a violation of the constitutions
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584: ~
APPENDICES. of the Church of Scotland, I can say with the Apostle Paul,
when he went to Rome to his countrymen,' That unto this day not only have
I done nothing contrary to the WVord of God, but, men and brethren, I have
done nothing against the people or customs of our fathers.' "I lay it down
as a solemn principle that, as a minister of Christ, I am responsible to
Him at every instant, in every act of my ministerial character and
conduct, and owe to Him alone an undivided allegiance; and I say more,
that every man is responsible to Jesus at every instant of his life, and
for every act of his life, and not to another, in an undivided allegiance.
He is the head of every man, and upon this it is that the authority of
conscience resteth; on this it is that toleration resteth; on this it is
that all the privileges of man rest; that Jesus is the head of every man;
and this is His inalienable prerogative. Nothing can come between it and a
man; and every man must die for his duty to Jesus rather than his duty to
the king; he must die loyally, not rebelliously; but still he must rather
die than disobey Jesus; and I say more, every man must gainsay his
minister if he believe him to be in error; must gainsay his prophet, yea,
every creature on the earth, if in error; must do it reverently, not
rebelliously, but still do it, because Jesus is the head of every man; and
every elder, and every minister and deacon of a church, must do the same.
And if any person or court, or the Pope of Rome, or any court in
Christendom, come between a man, or a minister, and his master, and
say,'Before obeying Jesus, you must consult us,' be they called by what
name they please, they are anti-Christ. I say no Protestant Church hath
ever done so. I deny the doctrine that was held forth yesterday, that it
is needful for a minister to go to the General Assembly before he does his
duty; I deny the doctrine that he can be required to go up to the General
Assembly for authority to enable him to do that which he discerneth to be
his duty." Moderator. "Let these words be taken down." 2Mr. Irving. " Ay,
take them down, take them down. I repeat the words: I deny it to be the
doctrine of the Church of Scotland that any minister is required to go up
to the General Assembly for authority to do that which he discerneth to be
his duty. Ye are pledged to serve Jesus in your ordination vows. Ye are
the ministers of Jesus, and not ministers of any assembly. Ye are
ministers of the Word of God, and not ministers of the standards of any
Church. I abhor the doctrine; it is of anti-Christ; it is the essence of
anti-Christ-it is Popery in all its horrors; it hath never been endured in
this land; and I trust there is still sufficient reverence for the name of
Jesus not to endure it. And if any man seeth any thing to propose to the
Church in which they err or come short, in duty to the Church, and not in
fear of the Church -for there is no authority in the Church above the
authority of the minister-it is his duty to set this matter in order, and
lay it before his brethren, saying,'I have discovered we are in fault in
this matter, and have set it in order, and do you likewise.' It is an easy
way of appeasing a man's conscience to say,'I must go to the General
Assembly for authority to do this or that.' It is Satan's trap to keep all
things as they are; to prevent all things from returning to what they have
been, and to prevent them from coming forward to farther perfection. But I
lay it down as a doctrine that if I, as a minister of the Church, for
instance, see evidence of the speedy coming of Christ to this world, to
execute the judgments written in the Scriptures, and destroy anti-Christ,
and establish His kingdom, and reign with His saints upon the earth, I am
not to be prevented preaching it because it is not in the standards. When
were the standards made the measure of the liberty of preaching and of
prophesying, which is the basis of all liberty? When was the liberty of
preaching bound up within the limits of Twenty-six or Thirty-nine
Articles? Never since the world
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C. 585 began; never was it so, and never shall it be endured. What! is it
meant to be asserted that the decision of a council sitting in
Westminster, in troublous times, was forever to bind up the tongue of the
preacher to preach nothing but the things contained therein? I never
subscribed these articles with that view; and if any other man hath so
signed them, it is with a false view; and if with that view it is said I
did subscribe them, I say it is not so; and if any one say I must use
them, I solemnly say I will not do so. " As for the trust-deed, was it
ever heard that those who merely hold a trust over the walls of a building
should step in and take from the minister the right and privilege he hath
as a minister of Jesus, and the obedience he oweth unto Jesus? But this
trust-deed distinctly provideth for the contrary, namely,' That all
matters relating to the public worship of God, in the said church or
chapel, and the administration of such religious rites and services as
should be performed or observed therein, shall be left to the discretion
of the minister for the time being, during such time as there shall be a
minister.' " Seeing that the ordinances and services performed or observed
in that chapel are left to the discretion of the minister for the time
being, the complainants must instruct the Presbytery that I have set up an
ordinance contrary to the Church of Scotland; that the Church of Scotland
has forbidden the ordinance of prophesying to be in the Church, by those
who are moved by the Spirit of God, for the evidence which is on your
table is evidence to the effect that they speak by the Spirit of God. Ye
are judges of the fact; it is a complaint on a point of fact; and the fact
instructed is this, that they speak by the Spirit of God. But it is the
fact you must bring to the constitution of the Church of Scotland, not
your opinion of the fact. I charge the Presbytery before Him who is the
judge of all, that they put aside their own opinion whether these persons
speak by: the Spirit of God; for they have not heard or examined it,
neither have they proved them by the text of Scripture. You are not, in
such circumstances, competent to question it; and for your souls, your
precious souls' sake, ye must take the fact as judges, and show by the
canons of the Church that men are forbidden to speak in tongues, and
prophesy by the constitution of the Church of Scotland,; and ye shall
search long before ye shall find it. I have not, therefore, suffered the
public service, as charged against me, of the Church to be interrupted by
persons not being ministers or licentiates of the Church of Scotland; I
have not. I have permitted it to be interrupted by the Holy Ghost, and
that according to the canons of Scripture, where we read, that' If any
thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first keep silence.'
"2dly. It is charged that I have allowed the public worship of said
National Scotch Church to be interrupted by persons speaking who were
neither members nor seat-holders. I have not. Your evidence shows I-have
not suffered the worship of God to be interrupted by persons not members
or, seat-holders, but by the person of the Holy Ghost speaking in the
members of Jesus. And respecting the particular assignation,' not being
seat-holders,' they are members of the Church of Christ, and I know them
to be so; and I never yet heard of seat-holders in Scripture, or in the
constitution of the Church of Scotland; nor did I eve' hear of holding a
seat in the Church of Scotland giving any right or privilege by its
constitutions, but quite the contrary; for in the generality of the
churches, the seats, or at least the greater part of them, are not held by
the persons who sit in them, the church being divided among the heritors
and tenants. It is the custom for the servants and tenants to sit in their
landlord's seat indiscriminately; and I wish there was no such thing as
seat-holding and seat-renting in churches: it is one of the most
dishonorable things in the Protestant Church, which has never been known
in the Church of Rome, and is not at
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APPENDICES. this day. Yea, more, it is contrary to the law of the realm of
Scotland that seats should be private property; and in the case of
Haddington Church, it was ruled by the Lord Ordinary that the lock of a
pew should be taken off; and that, if not, any person might break it off,
after the worship had begun. "3dly. I am charged with allowing females to
speak in the Church: I have not allowed females to speak in the Church;
but, believing that it was the Holy Ghost speaking in them, I have
permitted it; but I never allowed any one, male or female, to speak of
themselves, as the evidence bears; but, on the other hand, when others
spoke, I caused them to be silenced, and even sent for aid to the
police-office when I found by milder means they would not be restrained. "
4thly. It is charged that other individuals, members of the congregation,
were suffered by me to interrupt the public service on Sabbath and other
days. I have not done so, as the evidence on the table will show, and that
evidence adduced by the complainants themselves. I" 5thly. It is charged
that I appointed set times for the suspension of the worship, in order to
encourage and allow these interruptions. This needs a little
explanation..'When I saw it was my duty to take this ordinance into the
Church, I then considered with myself what was the way to do it with the
greatest tenderness to my flock, so as to cause the least anxiety and
disturbance; for complaints immediately came to me from several persons
that they were unable to taste the good and profit of the other services
for fear of these interruptions. My anxiety, therefore, was to deal
faithfully by the shepherd, and tenderly with the flock. I observed,
therefore, what was the manner of the spirit in the morning meetings; and
I found generally it was the manner of the spirit, when I, the pastor, had
exhorted the people, to add something to the exhortation, either to
enforce it, if it were according to the mind of God, or to add to it; or
graciously and gently to correct it, if it were incorrect. I also observed
it was the way of the spirit not to do this generally, but in honor of the
pastor; and that the spirits in the prophets acknowledged the office of
the angel of the Church as standing for Jesus; and accordingly, I said,
wishing to deal tenderly with the flock, let it begin with this order,
that, after I have opened the chapter, and after I have preached, I will
pause a little, so that then the prophets may have an opportunity of
prophesying if the spirit should come upon them; but I never said that the
prophets should not prophesy at any other time. I did this in tenderness
to the people; and, feeling my way in a case where I had no guidance, I
did it according to the best records of ecclesiastical antiquity; and I
was at great pains to consult the best records; and I found Mosheim, in
his most learned dissertation on Church history, declare to this effect:
That in the first three ages of the Church, it was the custom, after the
pastor had exhorted the people, for the congregation to rest, and the
prophets prophesied by two or three; so that I walked in the ordinances of
the Church of Christ. It is true, there are no directions to this effect
in the standards of the Church of Scotland; but I never yet understood
that the Book of Discipline, or the Confession of Faith in 1560, was
intended to begin a new Church, nor that it was intended to be said, we
must get at the Scriptures only through these standards; and I know, and
am very sure, that if the Reformers had expected any such doctrine to be
broached by us, their descendants, they would have suffered their hands,
ay, and their heads too, to be cut off rather than have compiled and put
forth these articles. There are, in fact, no instructions at all in the
canons of the Church on the subject; but in the First Book of Discipline
there is an endeavor made to reconstitute the order of prophets, as laid
down in 1 Cor., xiv., and this with the materials they then had. I state
it for the information of the Presbytery, and also of
Page 587
APPENDIX
C. 587 the complainers, that so far was the Church of Scotland from
preventing at the time any person from speaking in the Church but ordained
ministers or licentiates, that there are. express provisions laid down
requiring every person who hath a gift to come forward at the request of
the minister, on pain of proceedings before a civil magistrate; nay, more,
men in whom is supposed to be any gift which might edify the Church must
be charged by the ministers and elders to join in the session, and'company
of interpreters, to the end that the Kirk may judge whether they be able
to serve to God's glory, and to the profit of the Kirk, in the vocation of
ministers or not; and if they be found disobedient, and not willing to
communicate the gifts and special graces of God with their brethren, after
sufficient admonition, discipline must proceed against them, provided the
civil magistrate concur with the judgment and election of the Kirk.' For
no man may be permitted, as best pleaseth him, to live within the Kirk of
God; for every man must be constrained, by fraternal admonition and
correction, to bestow his labors, when of the Kirk he is required, to the
edification of others.' Now this is in the First Book of Discipline, drawn
up by our Reformers, and which received the assent of Parliament in the
reign of James VI., and never has been abrogated to this day. The
Westminster Articles of Confession were intended as a supplement to the
others, but not.to supersede them; and.they were adopted chiefly for the
sake of conformity with the Presbyterian churches in England, and nothing
whatever therein contained is to prejudice what is found in these
standards. " So far, then, from being the rule of the Established Church,
it is expressly provided that any member, even with an ordinary gift of
teaching, if charged by the minister to join with the session to come
forward, must obey, in order to see whether he may labor in the vocation
of the ministry or not. The prophets, therefore, are one part of the
ministry; and in permitting them to speak, I, in fact, did exactly obey
this canon. I tried the gifts, and then planted them in the Church; and
instead of acting contrary to the standards in so doing, I say I acted in
the spirit of them. For it is thus written in the ninth head of the First
Book of Discipline,'.entitled,'For Prophesying or Interpreting the
Scriptures.' "'To the end that the Kirk of God may have a trial of men's
knowledge, judgments, graces, and utterances, as also such that have
somewhat profited in God's Word may from time to time grow, in more full
perfection, to serve the Kirk, as necessity shall require, it is most
expedient that in every town where. schools and repair of learned men are,
there be one certain day in every week appointed to that exercise, which
St. Paul calls prophesying, the order whereof is expressed by him in these
words: "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the rest judge; but if
any be revealed to him that sits by, let the former keep silence; ye may
one by one prophesy, that all. may learn, and all may receive consolation.
And the spirit," that is, the judgment, " of the prophets is subject to
the prophets." By which words of the apostle it is evident that, in the
Kirk of Corinth, when they did assemble for that purpose, some place of
Scripture was read, upon the which one first gave his judgment, to the
instruction and consolation of the auditors; after whom did another either
confirm what the former had said, or added what he had omitted, or did
gently correct, or explain more properly, where the whole verity was not
revealed to the former. And in case things were hid from the one and from
the other, liberty was given for a third to speak his judgment to the
edification of the Kirk; above which number of three (as appears) they
passed not for avoiding of confusion. This exercise is a thing most
necessary for the Kirk of God this day in Scotland; for thereby, as said
is, shall the Kirk have judgment and knowledge of the graces, gifts, and
utterances of every man within their body. The simple, and such as have
somewhat
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APPENDICES. profited, shall be encouraged daily to study and to proceed in
knowledge-the Kirk shall be edified. For this exercise must be patent to
such as list to hear and learn; and every man shall have liberty to utter
and declare his mind and knowledge to the comfort and consolation of the
Kirk. But, lest of this profitable exercise there arise debate and strife,
curious, peregrine, and unprofitable questions are to be avoided. All
interpretation disagreeing from the principles of our faith, repugning to
charity, or that stands in plain contradiction with any other manifest
place of Scripture, is to be rejected. The interpreter in this exercise
may not take to himself the liberty of a public preacher (yea, although he
be a minister appointed), but he must bind himself to his text, that he
enter not in digression; or, in explaining common places, he may use no
invective in that exercise, unless it be of sobriety, in confuting
heresies: in exhortations or admonitions he must be short, that the time
may be spent in opening the mind of the Holy Ghost in that place,
following the sequel and dependence of the text, and observing such notes
as may instruct and edify the auditory for avoiding of contention; neither
may the interpreter, or any in the assembly, move any question in open
audience whereto himself is not able to give resolution without reasoning
with one another; but every man ought to speak his own judgment to the
edification of the Kirk. "' If any be noted with curiosity of bringing in
of strange doctrine, he must be admonished by the moderator, ministers,
and elders immediately after the interpretation is ended. "' The whole
ministers, a number of them that are' of the assembly, ought to convene
together, where examination should be had how the persons that did
interpret did handle and convey the' matter (they themselves being
removed); to each must be given his censure; after the which, the person
being called, the faults (if any notable be found) are noted, and the
person gently admonished. "' In that assembly are all questions and
doubts, if any arise, resolved without any contention; the ministers of
the parish kirks in landwart adjacent to every chief town, and the
readers, if they have any gift of interpretation, within six miles, must
concur and assist those that prophesy within the towns, to the end that
they themselves may either learn,'or others may either learn by them. And,
moreover, men in whom is supposed to be any gift which might edify the
Church, if they were well employed, must be charged by the ministers and
elders to join themselves with the session and company of interpreters, to
the end that the Kirk may judge whether they be able to serve to God's
glory, and to the profit of the Kirk in the vocation of ministers or not;
and if any be found disobedient, and not willing to communicate the gifts
and special graces of God with their brethren, after sufficient
admonition, discipline must proceed against them, provided that the civil
magistrate concur with the judgment and election of the Kirk. For no man
may be permitted, as best pleaseth him, to live within the Kirk of God.
But every man must be constrained by fraternal admonition and correction
to bestow his labors, when of the Kirk he is required, to the edification
of others. What day in ghe week'is most convenient for that exercise, what
books of Scripture shall be most profitable to read, we refer to the
judgment of every particular kirk-we mean, to the wisdom of the ministers
and elders.' " If our Church has ruled that in a matter of ordinary gifts
there should be liberty given to speak, can any one believe that if the
gifts of the Holy Ghost had been in the Church they would not have ruled
it for these extraordinary gifts also? Is it possible to believe the
Reformed Church would have justified the complainers in this motion, or
justify the Presbytery in coming to the decision that I should be ejected
from the National Scotch Church because I admitted persons, after they had
been
Page 589
APPENDIX
C. 589 fully proved to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to exercise those
gifts in the congregation? Can any one say that it is contrary to the
ordinances of the Reformed churches of Scotland so to do? But if there
were ordinances to this effect (which there are not), I would disobey
them; if there were ordinances of the king to this effect, I would disobey
them. Yea, I would disobey all ordinances, whether of the ecclesiastical
or civil power, which commanded me not to do a thing which I believed the
Lord Jesus commanded me to do; and the man who doth not so act in this
matter is guilty of treason against the King of Heaven; and I would
disobey any earthly king in this matter, but I would do it loyally, not
rebelliously. I would say,; Whether it be right I should obey man rather
than God, judge ye;' and whether it be right in the sight of God to obey
the great Head of the Church or His servants; the Head of the Church
speaking in His Word, or His servants'speaking through any confession or
canon of their drawing up, judge ye. And if any man thinks I have set my
hand to any thing contrary to that, I deny it. I tell that man I have not
done it knowingly; and if unknowingly I have done it, I do here, before
the Church of God, confess I have done wrong; for it never was given to a
man to sign away his liberty of serving Jesus. It can not be required of a
man; no power on earth can require it. And if by any act of my life I have
given away my power of serving Jesus, I confess I have done wrong, and
when it is brought to my conscience I will renounce it, because I solemnly
deny that there is any power on earth which can take away a man's power of
serving Jesus, who bought him with His blood, who is King over all; who
sitteth in the congregation of His saints as head, and raiseth the beggar
from the dunghill to set him among princes, and who casts down princes
from their thrones. But I have not done it; the Church of Scotland hath
not required it; and if the Church of Scotland had, in an evil hour, in
her fallibility (which none is so ready to confess as she is; for, in the
Preface to the first Confession of the Reformed Church of Scotland, words
nearly to the following effect are contained. I can not, perhaps, quote
the precise words, but I will answer for the substance:' If any man do
discover in these Articles any thing which repudiates God's Word or right
reason, we crave him of his honor or of his kindness to inform us, and we
promise that we will give him satisfaction out of the Word of God and
sound reason, or admit that we are wrong')-if, therefore, the Church of
Scotland, in the exercise of that fallibility, which none were so ready to
acknowledge as our Reformers, standing up as they did against the
infallibility of the Church of Rome, had framed any canon to prevent me as
a minister of Christ from doing the thing which I have done in obedience
to Christ, I would have felt it my duty to disobey that canon, and have
borne the consequences. I would not have waited for months or years the
result of a slow process before the Church courts for authority so to do;
for where in the mean time were my conscience; where were my Lord; where
were the spiritual edification of my flock; where were the ordinance of
prophesying? But the Church expecteth it of her ministers that they should
walk according to the ordinances of Christ, and fulfill their duty to Him;
and in doing so I should have advised my brethren to do it, and would have
taken counsel with them in the matter. Nay, I did take counsel with the
brethren in the ministry in this matter, at least with two, than whom none
stand higher in their respective churches: the Rev. D. Dow, minister of
Irongray, in Scotland, than whom no man in that Church stood in higher
reputation till he had received the gift of the Holy Ghost, but of whom I
must now say that he hath become a fool for Christ's sake-I wrote to him
on the subject, and also communed with another, who stood in the very
highest place in the English Church before the evangelical body; and I
asked them what they thought of:this matter; and the deliverances I
received from them answered exactly to the previous
Page 590
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APPENDICES. judgment of my own mind. At the same time I wrote to a
clergyman of the Church of England, than whom none stood higher in his
Church, but who is now also become'a fool for Christ's sake, and received
his judgment to the same effect; so that in one week I had three judgments
concurring with my own opinion to the very letter. These I laid before the
elders and deacons, in order to show them that I was not acting
precipitately, but with the counsel of my brethren. And I do not say but
that, if I had been a member of this Presbytery, which at that time I was
not, I would have felt it my duty to lay it before them. Ah! surely I
would; I would never have hid any thing in my bosom which came from the
Lord, and I knew it to be so; for while I was connected with this
Presbytery, every thing that was brought to me I brought into the
Presbytery; but then I had been rejected by this Presbytery as a heretic;
I had been publicly repudiated by them as a heretic, and branded with this
stigma over the whole land, and I had none to consult with. I would have
observed brotherly love, but I was under no authority to them, or to any
Church court; for the General Assembly, at their last meeting, clearly
laid it down that they could not exercise any rule beyond the kingdom of
Scotland. It was ruled so by men on both sides the house; so that if I had
been inclined to act the churchman instead of the Christian minister; if I
had been inclined to act the part of a minister of the Church of Scotland,
and not the part of a minister of Christ; if I had been inclined to put
myself forth as a trustee of the standards of the Church of Scotland, and
not as a minister of the living Word, even then I could not have done the
thing required of me, namely, to apply to them to allow the speaking. with
tongues and prophesying in the congregation; but I would not, so there is
an end of that kind of argument. I would not, because, when I felt the
authority of my Lord in my conscience, it would have been an insult to Him
to ask for more. There is no authority that can come between the angels of
the Church and Him the Head. See ye if it is ever written in the seven
epistles of Christ to his Church, in the Revelations, or in the Word of
God any where, that a minister is required to go to the Presbytery or
synod before obeying the commands of Jesus. See ye if there be any
instance in which it is not charged to the angel of the Church if any
thing disorderly occurs in the Church; and I say, after long and painful
study of the constitution of the Church of Scotland, and after long love,
and ardent, to her constitution and discipline, and much active service
for her sake, and after much delightful communion with her members, I will
say to my younger brethren in the ministry here present, that it is not
sound doctrine which teacheth that the Presbytery, or the General
Assembly, or any court, or any man, or bishop, or any pope interveneth and
interposeth their authority between a minister and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who speaks to the minister directly, and the minister directly obeys
Christ. The counsels of the Church are for settling the differences that
arise, but are not intended to take away the free standing of a minister
of Christ in the Church. I say it is the only sound doctrine that the
ministers of Christ, and pastors of His people, stand directly responsible
to Christ, all Presbyteries, synods, councils, creeds, canons, and
confessions notwithstanding. These, doubtless, have their use and place,
but this is not within the present question. "Now I have brought this
third head to a close, namely, concerning the ruling of it. I deny every
charge brought against me seriatim, and say it is not persons, but the
IHoly Ghost that speaketh in the Church. I do not say what the judgment of
this Presbytery might be if they could say that these persons do not speak
by the Holy Ghost. But this they can not do. This is what I rest my case
upon. This is the root of the matter. This is what I press on the
conscience of the Presbytery; and it is laid before them out of the mouths
of all the witnesses.
Page 591
APPENDIX
C. 591 The evidence is entirely to this effect; not one witness has
witnessed to the contrary. "II do not think it necessary to go into the
institution of the Church of Scotland to show my faithfulness to the
Church since I came into this city; how many of the ordinances I found
fallen down, and my labors in building them up again; the office of
deacon, the duty of the elders in visiting the sick of the flock, public
baptism in the Church, the services before and after the holy communion,
etc.; but I am not here to testify of myself, for if I did my witness were
not true. I am here to testify of another, even of the Lord Jesus Christ,
whose name as Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, whose standing name of
Godhead-for it is that which distinguisheth His name as God, implying that
He hath a person of the Godhead to distribute-is denied by this complaint.
And though the complainers shut their ears upon it, yet it is the truth,
it is the burden of it; and it is, let me say, the guilt of it, and a
heinous guilt it is. I believe this standing name of Godhead which Jesus
hath, as Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, it is the purpose of this complaint
to suppress in the Church, to prevent from being exercised in the Church.
It is the purpose of this complaint to prevent the Lord Jesus from
fulfilling His covenant of baptism to every member of the Church; it is
the purpose of this complaint to prevent the Lord Jesus from speaking with
His own voice in the Church." Mloderator. " Order! I will not allow this
assertion. As long as Mr. Irving speaks to facts, we will hear him; but
when he imputes intentions to the complainers, I submit it is clearly
disorderly." M'ar. Irving. "You do not understand what I mean. I mean that
it is the animus of this document. Is it not the very intention of the
whole complaint? I appeal to the court." Mloderator. "You have made severe
personal charges, and I rule it is not competent so to go on." %Jf.
Irving. I'I ask the judgment of the court on this point, whether it is not
the very intention of'this deed, and whether I was arguing as to the
persons, or as to the deed of complaint; and I was saying it is the very
spirit of the complaint to prevent the voice of the Holy Ghost from being
heard in the Church, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost; it is the
spirit of the complaint to put it down, because it has the sign of the:
Holy Ghost upon it, which is speaking with' tongues." Mri. Ml~ann here
interrupted the defender, and disavowed the intentions imputed to the
trustees. Mr. Irving. "I speak to this paper (the copy of the complaint),
and I am perfectly in order. I have a good right to judge of this paper,
and no man shall prevent me. Surely this Presbytery,:to whom I appeal,
will allow me to speak to my indictment." Dr. Cronzbie. "I must say,
Moderator, that I conceive Mr. Irving perfectly in order, although the
words might have been qualified as to the effect of the complaint. Mr.
Irving has explained: that he does not impute improper motives to the
complainers; he means not the spirit of the complainers, but the spirit of
the complaint." Air. Irsving. "The tendency and effect of the complaint,
then, that is quite regular." Moderator. "That is what I suggested." Alir.
Irving.' "Well, I say, the tendency and effect of the complaint is to
resist and hinder the voice of the Holy Ghost speaking in the Church; and
let me enumerate the points in the complaint again, and glad am I to have
another opportunity of enumerating them. Well, then, the inevitable
tendency of the complaint is to destroy the name of Jesus as Baptizer with
the Holy Ghost, and by a verdict of a court, and with a canon of a Church
(and it makes no matter what court it is, for the highest
Page 592
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APPENDICES. of human authorities is but as the lowest when compared with
the dignity of Jesus), to take away from Him this name as Baptizer with
the Holy Ghost, and to say that name, in its full property, and grace, and
blessedness, and effects, belongeth not to Him. The tendency of the
complaint is to take away from every child of God, in the bosom of the
National Scotch Church, the hope and the desire of having the baptism of
the Holy Ghost given to them for the edification of the Church, according
to the covenant of baptism. The tendency of the complaint is to take away
the liberty from that Church of having and exercising the gift of tongues
and of prophecy, the grand ordinance which the apostle expressly says is
for edification, exhortation, and comfort. The tendency and effect of the
complaint is to take away the speaking with tongues and prophesying, which
is for the edification of the Church. The tendency of the complaint is to
take away the ordinance of the prophet from the Christian Church, which
ordinance Jesus hath appointed to be in the Church always, and which would
always have been in the Church, had men looked always to the ordinances of
Jesus, instead of looking to human wisdom and traditions, and human system
and human authority. The tendency of the complaint is to take away from
the Holy Ghost the liberty of speaking in the Church, His own temple, the
temple of truth, and that because the thing spoken is accompanied with His
own sign of speaking with tongues. It is the spirit and tendency of this
complaint to take from a minister of Christ the dignity and responsibility
which pertaineth to him as an officer of the Church of Christ, to rule and
order his church in spiritual things, and to be the responsible deputy of
Christ in all things pertaining to words and ordinances. It is the
tendency and effect of this complaint to take from a minister of the
Church of Scotland the liberty and privilege which belongs to him as a
minister of Christ, which, though not given him by the Church of Scotland,
yet are guaranteed to him both by the canons of the land and the canons of
the Church; which are given to him by Jesus, and are guaranteed to him by
the powers, as well civil as ecclesiastical, so that no man shall let or
hinder him therein. It is the tendency and effect of this complaint to put
trustees (who have nothing to do but with the care of the building, that
it be not diverted from its proper ends, which in this case has not been
done; and I defy them, and all men, to show that I have contravened any
ordinances of the Church of Scotland or of the Church of Christ)-to exalt
trustees over the minister, and to make him their bondman. And I warn you,
ministers, that if you do sanction such an interference with a man acting
in the spirit in which I have acted; if you do wink at these proceedings,
and not look them in the face, but give these men power to cast me and my
flock-a flock of hundreds, and a congregation of thousands-out of that
church which has been built, I will say, very much on the credit of my
name; if you aid them in casting me out into the wide streets, you will do
a thing for which the Lord will chastise you, not in higher matters only,
but in this kind also in which you offend, namely, in those who have the
secular care of the houses where you worship.* I have but one word to add
as to the position in which I submit this matter to the Presbytery,
because in this matter both parties have a right of judgment. With all
reverence, therefore-and you must hear it with patience, for what I am
going to say is not pleasing to flesh and blood; but I must exonerate my
conscience-with all reverence, therefore, I say, I do not submit this case
to the Presbytery as a Presbytery of the Church of Scotland, having any
jurisdiction over me; and ye will not ask it of me, because I have no
right of appeal from this Presbytery to the Church of Scotland. I do not,
therefore, submit it to this Presbytery as a Presbytery having any right
of superintendence over me; for, though I was once a member of your
Presbytery, I went out from you of my own free-will; * This warning has
been singularly and literally justified by the course of events since
then.
Page 593
APPENDIX
C. 593 and when I had so gone forth from you, because I saw you not acting
as I judged according to the commandments of the Lord, ye did judge me, in
my absence, a heretic on great points of faith; and then, at the sessions
of our Church, the Church did, by solemn act of the ruling elders,
withdraw itself from the Presbytery, and therefore we are in no respect
under your jurisdiction. And although many questions have been put by you
to the witnesses as to my doctrine, and ye, I believe, would not have done
so if you had not supposed erroneously that you had jurisdiction over me,
I, although I could have arrested it, yet being desirous that the truth
should be fully known, and knowing the examination would throw some light
on the question in hand, I suffered it to go on, although I felt that in
it the Presbytery did trespass very far on my rights as a party in this
case; and I will say also, did very much forget the calmness and
disinterestedness of judges; for never did I hear, or any one else, in any
court, witnesses so questioned and cross-questioned-no, not even where
evidence of the most suspicious kind is wont to be brought forward-as they
were here cross-questioned by the Presbytery; and that, too, even in the
most solemn matters. And the witnesses being voluntary, and under no
compulsion, were subjected to a most unusual process of vexatious
scrutiny." Mr. Maclean. " Order! I say, Moderator, the questions were not
put in an improper manner. They were questions quite in order, and for
sifting the truth in respect to this matter; although the manner may have
been that of firmness and decision, there was no improper feeling." The
Moderator rose to defend the Presbytery, and thought they had not departed
from gravity in cross-examining the witnesses. There was no parallel
between them and civil judges, for the Presbytery were both prosecutors
and judges, and therefore, in duty to the Church, they were bound to put
all questions needful to elucidate the truth. MAi. Irving. "It stands in
evidence that the witnesses were examined as to my doctrine, and as to
matters far away from the matter in hand. I can only say I never
authorized the Presbytery to inquire into, my doctrine. Nay, I say more, I
never could submit my doctrines to you as a court of Christ; for, by
refusing all reference to the Holy Scriptures, ye have put yourselves
beyond this privilege. What would any one say of a civil court in Britain
which would refuse an appeal to the laws of the realm? Would not such a
court, sitting in name of the king, who would so despise the laws, be
guilty of rebellion against the king, whose office it is to administer the
laws impartially to all his subjects? So say I if a court, calling itself
the court of Christ, says it will not allow appeal to lie open to the
Scriptures, which are the statutes of our King, as was ruled by this
Presbytery in deliberate judgment yesterday, and that judgment protested
against, then that court ceaseth to be a court of Christ: and I can not
retract or qualify my assertion that, by such proceeding, this Presbytery
hath become only a court of anti-Christ." Mr'. Macclean rose to order, and
said, "It is quite competent to the reverend gentleman to protest against
our decision on that point, but not to impugn the court; but to say that
we are not a court of Christ, but a court of anti-Christ, I will never,
never submit to it. I hold my judgment on the matter to be as good as that
of the Rev. E. Irving, and maintain that he is not competent to do any
thing but to enter a protest against us." Mr. Irving. "I have said the
word, and do not retract it, because it is the truth. I said it, I assure
you, sir, in sorrow; I grieve over it, I lament over it in faithfulness. I
am bound to say the Presbytery have most grievously erred in this matter;
and, until repentance be shown by them for this sin, the Lord is angry
with them. I can not, therefore, submit this matter to the Presbytery as a
Presbytery, but mereP P
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APPENDICES. ly as referees. I do not deny that the Presbytery when it
meets is, or at least ought to be, constituted in Christ, the Head of the
Church, and ought to be conducted by entire regard to the teaching of the
Holy Ghost; but this Presbytery have virtually denied this, and have cut
themselves off from the fountain of justice; they have cast themselves
from all judgment on the basis of Scripture, which is the only standard of
faith and practice, as declared by the very standards of our Church; and
they can not give righteous judgment in this cause until they repent of
that which was done yesterday, in cutting themselves off from all appeal
to this Book, and expunge their decision on this point from the records;
and not only not prevent, but gladly permit, in all causes that come
before them, reference to be made to the Holy Scriptures. For how would I
be a good magistrate of the king if, when parties came before me with any
case to be adjudged, and those parties were referring to the statutes of
the land, I should say, you ought not to refer to the statutes of the
king, but to some antique customs, or some of the new-come notions-some of
the notions lately come up in this part of the countryl-which we have
ruled among ourselves? At our Quarter Sessions, if a man should come up
before a magistrate, and'should be accused of any matter, and it should be
found out and showed that'the statutes of the realm applied to the very
point, but that they had been long neglected, and were lying in desuetude,
surely you would judge him by the statute so adduced. If that court were
to say No, we can not permit any such appeal, would you say they were
fulfilling their office justly? So I say you ought to encourage appeals to
the Word of God, because it is the only rule of faith and of practice. It
is the thing which is imposed on every baptized person, and as such it is
obligatory on you. Is it not the custom with you, and with every other
minister of our Church, to impose it on every'baptized person'in these
very words? Do you not oblige every person who comes to be baptized to
declare that these Scriptures are the only rule of faith and practice,
whereof an excellent summary is contained in the Confession of Faith, and
in the shorter and longer Catechisms? Yes, these are the words which are
imposed on every baptized person. I have imposed them on every person I
have baptized, except occasionally I may have forgotten it; and it is the
constant custom to impose them on every baptized person. The Scriptures
are laid on every parent as the only rule of faith and practice. You arc
bound by this obligation, whether as fathers or as ministers; and yet now,
when I come into your court, and submit to you a cause, a most solemn
cause, a most momentous cause, a most ponderous cause, the like of which
hath -not been agitated in Christendom for many centuries-a cause
affecting the honor of the Holy Ghost, and His work in the Church, which
is His temple; a cause touching the Holy of Holies, and not the skirts of
the tabernacleye, when I come before you with this cause, refuse all proof
of such work from the Scriptures, and say, We will not rule our practice
by the Word of God." M1r. Iiving, on being called to order, said in
explanation, "I was only saying that, in the practice of this court, there
was never such'a solemn subject before it. Is it not the naked fact that
you did prevent'me from appealing to the Scriptures? Am I to be held in
disorder for speaking the plain and naked truth?" nThe Moderator denied
the analogy'drawn between civil courts and ecclesiastical courts, and
disclaimed the inference drawn by Mr. Irving from their conduct that they
had interdicted him from appealing to the Scriptures. " What are the laws
of a kingdom but the will of the king constructed by the nation? The
standards of our Church, in like manner, were held to' be the will of the
King of Zion, as declared by our Church, and therefore we are in order
when we insist that the reverend dcfender shall plead to the will of the
King as declared in the standards of our Church. The reverend defender
must show that he is acting according to his ordination vows
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APPENDIX
C. 595 in this matter. Hie has taken a larger range, however, and gone
into irrelevant matters. We have borne with him by courtesy and in
tenderness; but I will not compromise the dignity of the court, and permit
him to use epithets which I think are abusive." MFr. Irving. " I speak at
this bar as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ; as a minister of His
Word, which the Lord has given me to keep and to minister; and as a
maintainer of the paramount authority of His Word; and I say again, that
dishonor of the most:flagrant nature hath been done to the Word of God in
these proceedings by preventing an appeal to it; and if I were not to lift
up my voice against it, the very stones out of the wall, and the beams out
of the timber, would cry out. What! if I am not to appeal to the facts
which have actually taken place in this court, which have been ruled in
this court by the Presbytery in this matter, I will sit down and speak no
more. For I will not, I can not, be prevented by the court. There is a
right above every court, and there is one Head over every court. It has
been endeavored to prevent me from alluding to the things which were ruled
in this court, to take away from me the only line of defense which, as a
minister of the Word of God, I could have takenf. Sir, I can not but
appeal from the course t.hat has been adopted toward me, since I was
prohibited by a solemn decision of the court from appealing to the only
authority on the subject, which is the Word of God; for there is not a
line nor a word in the standards of the Church which directly takes up the
subject of the gift of the Holy Ghost. There is not a word concerning
speaking with tongues and prophesying in the standards of the Church of
Scotland. There is not a word within the whole compass of the Church
canons to carry an appeal to; and I say it is a mere hoodwinking of a man,
after you have shut my mouth on this important part of my case, to. say
that myjudgment was not taken away by your decision. Find me in the
standards of the Church any thing to appeal to; ye can not." Milr. Mann
here rose with a call off' Order." Mia. Irving. "If I: am to be
interrupted thus, I will sit down. I wish to act reverently toward my
brethren, but I must be more reverent to the Lord Jesus Christ; God knows
I am acting as a minister of His Word. Well, I say, I submit the matter to
this Presbytery as to a number of men endowed with conscience —with the
conscience and discernment of truth, and who are beholden to exercise
their conscientious discernment for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Head
of this court, and the head of every man, and who are beholden to judge
all things according to the law of Jesus Christ, which is the law of this
court, the law of every man; and I say that this Presbytery are called
upon before the Lord Jesus Christ to see and ascertain whether that thing
I have declared to them upon the veracity of a minister, which is
substantiated by the testimony on their table, given by witnesses
yesterday, all of their own selection, and which I will pledge myself to
authenticate farther by the testimony of not less than five hundred
persons, of unblemished life and sound faith, that it is the work of the
Holy Ghost, speaking with tongues and prophesying. And as all the
witnesses have borne a uniform testimony to it as the work of the Holy
Ghost, the Presbytery can not, they may not, before God, before the Lord
Jesus Christ, and before all these witnesses, shut their eyes willfully
against such testimony in this matter, or if they do, they will have to
stand at a bar where they can not evade the force of conscience and the
deep responsibility they now take on themselves, where there is no
shutting of eyes, but where every thing shall be disclosed. It is
instructed before you (surely the Presbytery will not shut its eyes to the
evidence on the table) that it is by the Holy Ghost that these persons
speak. There is no civil court whatever that would refuse to receive the
evidence lying on your ta
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APPENDICES. ble; and you may not as members of a Christian Church, you may
not as ministers and elders, you may not as honest men, turn aside from
the matter of fact that has been certified to you, and say, We will leave
that matter in the background; we will not consider it at all; we will go
simply by the canons of the Church of Scotland, and see what they say on
the subject. They say nothing on it, seeing they could say nothing, seeing
there was no such thing in being. There is nothing of the kind mentioned
in the Confession of Faith; and I ask you with what conscience you can
turn fiom the plain evidence that it is the Holy Ghost speaking in the
Church, and rest yourselves on nothing but points of formality. I say, go
to nothing to make up your judgment, for even from the Holy Scripture ye
may not do it; you may not do it, you can not do it if you fear the living
God; you can not do it if you respect men; you can not do it if you
respect your children; you can not do it if you respect. truth and
justice; you can not do it if you respect the Head of the Church, if you
acknowledge the authority of the Lord Jesus; you can not do it if you have
any reverence for the Holy Ghost. And if you resolve so to do, which may
the Lord forbid, I shall appear at the bar of the Great Judge as a witness
against you, that I did here this day for four or five hours contend, no
irrelevant matter, but contend the very matter in question-that we have
received the gift of the Holy Ghost; that we have ordered it according to
the Word of God, and that it ought not to be cast out of the Church. I
shall appear at that bar where all secrets shall be revealed, and evidence
that you have shut your eyes against this thing, notwithstanding all the
evidence that could be adduced; yea, though I have offered to substantiate
it by five hundred persons of unblemished reputation, who would willingly
come forward and testify to this work being of the Holy Ghost, before this
court, or any diet you may appoint. Ah! if ye will turn aside from that,
and say No, there are no customs or authority in the canons of the Church
for it, and we will not consider whether the thing is in Scripture or not;
if ye will not consider it in the only true light-the light of the
Scripture-I tell you,je shall be withered in your churches; I tell you, ye
will be visited with heavy retribution; I tell you, the waters in your
cisterns shall be dried up; I tell you, ye shall have no pastures in which
to feed your flocks; I tell you, your flocks shall pine away for hunger
and shall die. Moreover, I stand here rejoicing, not on your account
truly, but oh! I rejoice that I am counted worthy to suffer shame and
reproach for this testimony. If ye will, as members of a Christian court,
give your decision against me, while I deplore it on your account and that
of the complainers, I rejoice, yea, I rejoice exceedingly, for my own
sake, and for the sake of my flock; yea, I will call on them to rejoice,
and to be exceeding glad, that I am counted worthy to suffer for the
Lord's sake. And I will say of this Presbytery that it took away my
judgment; that it thrust away my judgment; that it would not examine into
the merits of the case; that it set aside the testimony of honest men-of
an elder, and a deacon, and a prophet, and a minister of Christ; and,
judging against all the evidence, ye have thrust aside their testimony,
and have merely said, Is there any authority for this in the Church of
Scotland? Oh, it is a small matter to be cast out of a house; it is a
small matter this, seeing we have'a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens,' and are here but as pilgrims and sojourners on the earth, as
all our fathers were. The Lord, we do not doubt, will provide us another,
and if not, we are no worse off than He who was accustomed to preach the
glad tidings of the kingdom by the Sea of Galilee; who taught His flock in
the fields and desert places of Judea, and on the Mount of Olives. We can
take ourselves to the fields and open places around this great city, and
there I can feed my flock; we can not be worse off than He who, to seek
retirement, went up into a desert mountain to pray, and who had not where
to
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APPENDIX
C. 597 lay His head; and when they all went' to their several homes, He
went to the Mount of Olives during the night to sleep there. We are not
worse off than He. Oh, it is a small matter to be turned out of our
church. He will soon recompense us with' a city which hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is God.' The day is near at hand when the heavens
shall be opened, and He, the Son of Man, shall appear in the clouds, with
power and great glory, and when His saints shall be taken to Him, to dwell
before HIis throne. It is near at hand, we know; that day is near at hand;
and we know this voice of the Holy Ghost has been sent to His Church to be
the witness to prepare all men for His speedy coming, by.a voice that
could not be doubted, which the Lord has been graciously pleased to send
among us in answer to our prayer. When ye had set aside the voice of
testimony, which I have lifted up for the last five or six years, to the
coming of Jesus, and counted it as a fable, then the Lord, in order that
ye might not perish, sent His own voice, as in the old time, to prepare
you for His coming; and poured out His Spirit to lead you to Jesus, in
order that ye might receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost; to call on you
to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost, through which alone you can be
saved in that day when the Lord's judgments shall be revealed from heaven
in flaming fire; when there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon, and
in the earth distress and perplexity of nations, as is now begun. And when
anti-Christ, that man of sin, shall be revealed, and shall be destroyed
with judgment; and when only those shall be preserved from the
persecutions of anti-Christ who have an anointing from the Holy One. When
we know these things, it is a small matter to be cast out of the Church,
because we know that house, that throne of glory, that temple in which God
dw'ells, shall be prepared-shall soon be prepared-for us; when we know
that in our timeyea, even in our time-He will come with all his saints to
execute vengeance upon all them who fear not God, and obey not the Gospel
of Christ. But it is a most momentous thing for you, who have been thus
betrayed-into the snare of Satan, to bring up a complaint against the Holy
Ghost, and from which awful responsibility I pray God your souls may be
delivered. A blessed thing will it be for you if you give heed, and turn;
but if ye will not turn, and yet, not having examined the thing for
yourselves, ye will give judgment against it, it will be a burdensome
thing to you. It will be a burdensome thing to this Presbytery if it shall
give judgment against that which hath been instructed before them to be
the work of the Holy Ghost, and which none of them can say, on their own
conscience or discernment, not to be the Holy Ghost, since they have not
come to witness it, they have not attempted to prove it. Ah! it will be a
burdensome thing, not to this Presbytery alone; but to this city also, if
ye shut the only church in it, yea, the only church in this kingdom in
which the voice of the Holy Ghost is heard! Think you, O men! if it should
be the Holy Ghost, what ye are doing! Consider the possibility of it, and
be not rash; consider the possibility of the evidence being true, of our
avermrents being right, and see what ye are doing. Ah! I tell you it will
be an onerous day for this city and this kingdom, in the which ye do with
a stout heart and high hand, and without examination or consideration,
upon any grounds, upon any authority, even though you had the commandment
of the king himself, shut up that house in which the voice of the Holy
Ghost is heard, that house in which alone it is heard. Pause-pausepause,
and reflect. Ye are going to set yourselves to the most terrible work to
which a Presbytery ever set its hand. I must say, in honesty, I do not see
every where that spirit' prevailing (it may prevail in some of you, I
judge no man), but I do not see that spirit prevailing of looking at the
act ye are about to do in that solemn magnitude in which it truly standeth
before the Judge of all. I beseech you to pause; pause for the sake of the
complainers, if not for your own sakes; pause for
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APPENDICES. the sake of this city; pause for the sake of this land. Be
wise men; come and hear for yourselves. The church is open every morning;
the Lord is gracious almost every morning to speak to us by His Spirit.
The church is open many times in the week, and the Lord is gracious to us,
and speaks through his servants very often. Ah! be not hard-hearted, be
not proud of mind; remember ye are but men. Remember, this work of the
Spirit, this speaking with tongues, is, indeed, for rest and refreshing to
the weary; but it is also for the stumbling, and snaring, and taking of
the proud and high-minded. Remember that it is to teach wisdom to those
only who are weaned from the breasts, and have the spirit of little
children. If ye be like those who are weaned from the breasts, and have in
you the spirit of little children, ye will beware, and learn; but if ye
have the spirit of strong men, and think your own wisdom sufficient,
believing that in the Church there is enough, or in the traditions of the
Church there is enough, ye will plunge headlong into the wrath of God. I
have no doubt in saying it, and I would be an unfaithful man, pleading not
my cause, but the cause of God, the cause of christ, the cause of the Holy
Ghost, in this Presbytery (for it is not the cause of a man; no, man has
no charge against me; I stand unimpeached, unblemished before them), did I
not say it. It is only this interruption, this new thing (for it is not an
interruption) that hath occurred, which is instructed by the evidence to
be the voice of the Holy Ghost, the speaking with tongues and prophesying,
which I have declared to be the same, which hath given offense. And I sit
down, solemnly declaring before you all, before God and the Lord Jesus
Christ, on the faith of a minister of Christ, that I believe it to be the
work of the Holy Ghost, for the edifying of the Church, for the warning of
the world, and for preventing men from running headlong into the arms of
anti-Christ, and for pointing out that condition of Babylonish confusion
into which the churches are come; for we all lament with one accord, and
must acknowledge that we have surely departed from what we were originally
as a Church, and how could the Lord show what the Church should be but by
restoring those gifts which she had at the beginning? WVhat can
reconstitute the Church of God but that which constituted it at the first?
What can deliver the captive from the bondage of the flesh but that God
who called Abraham from his native land? That God is now come in the
person of the Holy Ghost, to deliver His Church from the bondage of Egypt,
from the bondage of the flesh in which she is.'One word more, and I
conclude. I do solemnly declare (it is the faith of a Christian, and I
mean no offense), but I do solemnly declare my belief that the Protestant
churches are in the state of Babylon as truly as is the Roman Church. And
I do separate myself, and my flock standing in me, from that Babylonish
confederacy, and stand in the Holy Ghost, and under the great Head of the
Church, waiting for His appearing, who shall come out of Zion a Deliverer,
constituting no schism, but, as a minister believing his Lord is soon to
appear, desiring and playing that his Church may, by the baptism with the
Holy Ghost and with fire, be made meet for His appearing. And with this
hope and prospect I still have great love for each of you, and desire you
to know the same, and entreat you to come out from the Babylonish mixture,
to come out of all carnal ordinances, from all human authority repressing
you, and putting you in bondage to man's devices, and preventing you from
entering the promised land of the Spirit. I entreat you to set up the Holy
scriptures as the only basis of faith and practice; to look as ministers,
and to look as people, to them alone; and I know this, that if you throw
the Bible aside, you will not look to much else that is good. You may talk
about standards as you please, but I know there will be little reading of
the standards or other good books if there be not much reading of the
Scriptures. Therefore I entreat you to put the
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APPENDIX
C. 599 standards on their own basis, and every moment to walk before the
Lord in His commandments. Cry to the Lord, and repent of worldliness; turn
to the Lord, and call on Him to lead you into the true faith, and to
baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and the Lord will soon teach you and
bless you. What I say to the Presbytery I say also to you all; and I would
farther urge you, in doing so, not to fear but that in the day of His
appearing the Lord will spread His mantle over you, and hide you in the
secret of His pavilion, and give you forever reverently to inquire for,
and to know Him in His holy place. Amen and Amen." This defense was
followed by a speech frdm Mr. Mann, the representative of the trustees,
after which the Presbytery adjourned for a week. On Wednesday the
Presbytery met, and after the court had been opened in the usual form, the
reverend Moderator rose and said, that, "as there was no appeal from the
decision of the court, the Presbytery had come to the determination that
they would permit Mr. Irving to make any observations he might think fit
to make in reply to Mr. Mann's remarks, provided he would keep himself
entirely to the matter to which Mr. Mann had adverted." Mr. Irving then
rose, and after a short pause, which he devoted to prayer, said, "In order
that I may aid my memory, and walk strictly by the rule which the court
has laid down, I hold in my hand the report of the speech made on Friday,
on behalf of the trustees (of which I did not take notes), as it is
reported in the Record newspaper; and I will endeavor, by the help of my
memory, and of this report, however imperfect, to keep within the proper
limits; and if in any thing I may travel out of them, I desire to be
called by you, or the opposite party to order. Nevertheless, you will
allow me the privilege of replying in such a manner as that I may set
forth a full and fair answer, according to the convictions of my own mind,
to the things which were alleged in the speech of the gentleman who
appeared on the other side. The first thing of importance which he stated
was, that' He did not consider himself called upon to make any reply to
the unseemly and untimely denuncia-tions with which I attempted to stem
the course of justice.' To this I reply, I did not attempt to stem the
course of justice by any thing which I spoke, but I sought to open the
channels for the stream of justice to flow freely; and because I believe
that the present question before the Presbytery amounteth to this, Whether
the outbreakings of the latter-day glory shall be quenched or permitted to
proceed in the churches of Scotland and of England? I was at pains to lay
before you the awful consequences involved in this issue, being truly
desirous to save my brethren and my country from the wrath of God, which
will come -upon all who stand in' the way of His gracious purposes. For I
do certainly foresee that if you, as a Presbytery having power given to
you in this matter, should decide on any ground earthly, that this, which
is by the evidence on your table sworn, and which I solemnly declare to be
the voice of God speaking again in His Church, shall now be hindered and
put to silence, the end of it shall be great and heavy judgments of the
Lord on all those who have a hand in opposing His work; yea, and upon the
Church itself, if the Church shall take part in these proceedings, if she
do not enter her solemn protest against them, and deliver her soul from
them altogether. It was not surely to stem the course of justice, but to
lay open before your eyes what I believe to be involved in your decision,
that I did not hesitate to put these things forth, not in the way of
denunciation (for who am I, that I should judge or denounce any man?), but
as the convictions of my faith:'I believed, and therefore have I spoken,'
as the Holy Ghost saith in reference to the Lord (Psalm cxv.), which the
apostle also taketh to himself
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APPENDICES. (2 Cor., iv., 13). I therefore beseech the Presbytery not to
be carried away by this misrepresentation, as if I had taken upon me God's
seat of judgment, and spoken from that seat, in order to stem the course
of justice on earth. I hope the word was spoken unadvisedly, and not with
evil design; yet, if it had weight with any of the judges, let them be
careful to put it away. The fearful things which I spake were not intended
to stem the course of justice, but to let the judges know what depended on
the issue of the question before them. And most solemnly do I again,
before this court, declare my faith to be, that like as the Man of
Sorrows, because of His humiliation, and desertion of all the people, was
rejected and crucified by the Jews, whereby they brought down upon their
nation all those consuming judgments under which they still lie oppressed,
and from which they shall not be recovered till they look on Him whom they
pierced, and mourn over their sin, so is this Presbytery now brought into
the peril of rejecting the small and slender beginnings of the Holy
Ghost's work, because of the humble form in which it hath appeared, as a
few droppings before the abundant latter rain; into which snare if you
fall, then, while I believe that the Lord's work will not be hindered by
you or by all men, I farther believe that, because you will not further
it, but fight against it, you will bring down upon you heads, not the
judgment of the Jewish Church, which can be forgiven, because they sinned
against the Son of Man, but the judgment of the Gentile Church, which can
not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in that which is to come,
because it is done against the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father, which
is now revealed in its firstfruits, and standeth before you, the ministers
of Jesus, to be discerned and encouraged, not to be overlooked and
quenched, so far as your influence extends. " The next thing spoken in
reply was, That the subject matter before the Presbytery was not of
doctrine, but of discipline. But, brethren, I aver, and you should know
well, that discipline without doctrine is nothing but legal constraint and
absolute tyranny-a thing unknown in the Christian Church. Discipline is
not a thing which can be considered apart, being in truth nothing else
than the labor of the vinedresser when the vine is putting forth exuberant
leaves and branches, which hinder the fruit from being perfected; a labor,
surely, which presupposeth life in the vine, which life cometh in the
Church from sound and fruitful doctrine. Discipline, apart from doctrine,
hath no grace or love to rest upon, and turneth to severity. For herein a
court of the Church differeth from a court of law in that it ruleth every
thing, not according to the letter of the statute, but according to the
spirit of charity; and if she findeth her children in error in any matter,
the Church treateth with the conscience, not to destroy, but to save; to
pluck out the root of bitterness, and set the heart right with God, with
our neighbor, with the Church; to indoctrinate him in the mind of Jesus;
to deal lovingly and gently with him for whom Christ died; to open upon
him the flood-gates of the Gospel, and hold forth to his view the
holiness, the love, and the salvation against which sin doth blind the eye
and harden the heart. So that, supposing we were even to grant the
allegation that it were a mere question of discipline, this Presbytery can
not treat it rightly unless it inquire into the doctrine which the
discipline doth order and regulate; and if we be found of you to have
erred in any thing, teach us the true doctrine, and we will promise to
walk therein, according to the wholesome discipline of love. But I deny
the averment that it is a question of discipline and not of doctrine; for
if these be the manifestations of the Holy Ghost, what court under heaven
would dare to interpose and say they must not be suffered to proceed? Tell
me if that body does exist on the face of the earth which'would dare to
rule it so if they believe the work to be of the Holy Ghost. Surely not in
the Christian Church doth such a body exist; therefore the decision must
entirely depend on this: whether it be of the Holy Ghost, or whether
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C.. 601 it be not of the Holy Ghost. For if it be, who dare gainsay it?
Will any one say, if it be of the Holy Ghost, that any rule of discipline.
or. statute of the Church, supposing the statutes were sevenfold strong,
instead of being none at all-for on this subject the statutes of the
Church of Scotland are entirely silent-will any one dare to say that, if
it be the voice of the Holy Ghost, all laws and statutes in which, during
the days of her ignorance, the Church might have sought to defend herself
against the entering in of the voice of the Spirit of God, should be
allowed to keep Him out? And is it possible that this Presbytery should
shuffle off the burden of the issue, and act upon the assertion made, that
it is not the matter of doctrine which is to be entered into, the more
when the evidence upon the table is unanimous to this point, that it is
the voice of the Holy Ghost? And with such evidence upon your table, and
none other, will they say that you should not go into the question, but
decide on the matter according to an arbitrary rule, when, in point of
fact, there is no such rule in existence? Verily, if the Presbytery should
do so, it would make void all the laws of evidence, and. convert
witness-bearing into an idle formality, if it presumes to judge away from
the evidence before it. But I hope better things of this body of ministers
and elders than that they will fall into the trap laid for them, of hiding
the matter of fact in evidence before them from their eyes, of shunning
the question of doctrine, and converting this weightiest of all questions
into a mere matter of form. I know that you consider yourselves
constituted under the Holy Ghost; and when you pray to be directed under
Christ by the Holy Ghost, you are not putting up prayers in hypocrisy, but
in sincerity; and being so, when it is on the table in evidence, brought
by the accusing party, that it is the work of the Holy Ghost, this
Presbytery, constituted under the Holy Ghost, will surely never set such
evidence to a side, and refuse to expiscate the truth of the matter,
either to justify before the world the Holy Ghost's work; or else to
expose the fallacious pretense thereto, and so protect the dignity and
sanctity of that name in which you believe that you sit constituted. "But
to return to the course holden by the other party; taking it up as a
question of discipline, the gentleman who was the mouth of the trustees
set forth to you that'the subject-matter before the Presbytery was not the
question of the doctrine, it was a question of discipline; that being the
case, would he not be right in referring to the discipline of the Church
of Scotland as set out in her own standards? Because he did not go to the
Word of God to find out what was not in the Word of God, was he to be told
that he refused to appeal to the Word of God? Certainly not.' In reply to
this, I say that any man who will go into the standards of the *Church as
if they stood upon a basis of their own, and had an: authority in
themselves, he doth thrust the Word of God to the ground, and trample it
under his feet. Standards, in their own place, I respect as a testimony
against error, lifted up by one generation, not to prevent another
generation from standing up in the same liberty of testifying for what our
fathers testified, to add to, or take away from their testimony, according
as the Spirit in the Church may make the truth more manifest, or array it
in better forms against the enemy. I maintain that if any man will go into
the standards of any Church, be they Canons of the Council'of Trent, the
Articles of Pope Pius the Fourth, the Articles of the Church of England
and her Canons of different reigns, or be they the Articles of the Church
of Scotland, her Books of Discipline, or the conclusions of the
Westminster Assembly-be they what they please, and presume to put them
forth as having the weight of a feather in themselves until they be
confirmed by the Holy Scriptures, he doth, in so doing, plant his hand
upon the throne of God; and as Amalek was smitten by Jehovah for that sin,
so God will have war with him forever. For what is the throne of God? Is
it not His Word,
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C60~2.
APPENDICES. His indefeasible, immutable Word, His ever-to-be-revered Word,
every jot and tittle of which is most holy, most awfully holy, and heaven
and earth shall pass away, but it shall not pass away. " But let us come
to the facts, and wrestle with them on their own ground. And the fact is
this: that there is not one word in the standards against the thing which
I have done; I know very well where the minds of those who think
differently take refuge; in the clause pointed out in the forms of Church
government approved by the synod of divines in Westminster, where it is
said that the office of apostles, etc., hath ceased. But I appeal from
that to the Second Book of Discipline, which is of higher authority in the
Church, and where it is said that they may be revived if the Lord see it
good. Now we say positively it hath been revived; and in proof of our
asseveration, I appeal to the evidence, the whole evidence upon your
table, which if you refuse to admit, you not only set the oaths of honest
men at naught, but refuse to reverence that proviso and reverend
supposition of your fathers that the extraordinary gifts which were ceased
might be revived again. Now, saving these two places, I declare before you
all that, up to this moment, I am unconscious of a word concerning the
gift of the Spirit and the revival of the offices of apostles and prophets
being spoken of in any of the articles of the Church. I do not say that it
is not so, but I am unconscious of its being so: I have never been curious
to examine; but having engaged myself in republishing the ancient books of
the Church, I know for certain that in the Confession of Faith, and in the
Book of Discipline of the Church of Scotland, there is not a word spoken
farther on the subject. " But, even supposing that there were a breach of
discipline, I ask you to bear on your hearts of what degree and kind the
breach of discipline ought to be which would depose a man fiom being a
minister of the Church of Scotland. The question is not whether I have in
any thing infringed on the letter of the standards, but whether I have
been guilty of a crime sufficient to depose me from my Church? Am I
charged with heresy, neglect of public worship, leaving the flock for five
or six Sundays without due notice to the Presbytery, notorious swearing,
theft, adultery, fornication? Are these the things which the trustees have
come hither to complain of? for, verily, to guard against such opprobrious
scandals was the meaning of the clause, under the protestation of which
they drag me up hither. In the name of common sense, can you think that
the trustees were constituted for the end of keeping a look-out on the
discipline of the Church of Scotland, or its doctrines either? to come
into every ordinance of the Church and office of the minister, and see
whether they can rake up any thing in our doings whereon they can fasten a
complaint before the Presbytery? Surely this was never meant, but that
they should take cognizance of such' things as would depose a man in the
Church of Scotland. Have I done any thing worthy of deposition? Who is the
man who can stand up before the Presbytery, and challenge me in any point
of doctrine; in my walk and conversation; in my ministerial faithfulness;
in any thing which would invoke the question of deposition? Oh, if justice
is not departed from the breasts of men; if the sacred duty of protecting
a brother against oppression is not departed from the breasts of
clergymen; if reverence for a pastor and minister who hath labored and
spent himself for ten years in their service do dwell in the breasts of
elders and people, think what you are doing this day in sustaining a
question of deposition against a man who, in the eye of the whole Church,
is blameless as to its ordinances; who has been at pains to rebuild the
ordinances of the Church, fallen into decay and desuetude; who has
reconstituted its discipline in this city, restoring the office of the
deaconship, the fastdays, with the other regular services both before and
after the communion, the regular meetings of session, domestic visitation
of the flock, the custom of lecturing and
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APPENDIX
C. 603 preaching, and public baptism, yea, and every other form of worship
and discipline; bringing it into consistency with the standards of the
Church and the Word of God! What a thing it is for you to take sides, as
you have manifestly done, against a brother brought up before you on a
question of deposition, for no immorality, for no heresy, for no neglect
of duty, no schism, nothing subversive of the Church, but, upon their own
showing, for a mere irregularity or informality, if such it be! Is
justice, is charity, is honor gone from your breasts, that you can bear
such an insolence? If these be left with you, I can still, notwithstanding
your manifested partiality, safely trust this question to the'arbitration
of the Presbytery. "It hath been farther said by the complainer' that they
never merged on the matter of doctrine till they were compelled by the
witnesses refusing to answer the questions on the point of doctrine in the
way they thought it ought to be put.' Here he appealeth to a fact in order
to show the way in which he was brought into the matter of doctrine; and
I, standing here, appeal to the remembrance of the court and people
whether it be not true that, of their own free will, without any
constraint of any kind, they went into the doctrine. Was it ever heard
that a witness compelled a party or a court to change their purpose? It is
too absurd to be mentioned. The witness compels no one to go out of his
course; many times the questioner compelled the witness, but never the
witness the questioner. A witness is a silent man; nothing can be laid on
his shoulders except the simple fact how he answereth the questions put to
him. It is too much for honest men to bear it if one will say that the
questions broached around the table were not put of their own free will,
inquiring and on set purpose framed, in order to take to task, yea, an'd
tease the witnesses, in order to find out my doctrine. It is too much for
honest men who heard to take it in that you were compelled by the
witnesses to go into the doctrine; and when my solicitor objected to the
relevancy of your doing so, I said,' No, I allow you all liberty to go all
length into'any inquiry connected with the manifestations of the Spirit,
and the doctrines which I preach.' But after you did-so fully indulge your
inquisitive curiosity, and put the witnesses on the rack of the' most
refined ingenuity, and almost laid for them the traps of cunning
sophistry, it is too much for you to turn round and say, when it suits
your arguments to do so, It is all a matter of discipline; and if we did
go into doctrine, it was not our wish to do so, but we were forced out of
our course by the witness-who is altogether passive in your hands, and
hath no activity or force at all. If, therefore, you have gone into the
question of doctrine -as from the evidence appeareth, nine tenths of which
has to do with points of doctrine only-an evidence, let me say it, led, as
if on purpose, to find out, if you could, some connection between the
manifestation of the Spirit and the doctrine which I teach —yea, some
collusion between the prophets and myself, which you may say was not
intended, but was so evident as to strike one of the witnesses with such
horror as forced him to exclaim,' Do you think we stand here as knaves?' I
say, then, if you, of your own accord, have thoroughly expiscated the
question of doctrine in the evidence, and turn round upon us, and say, as
the gentleman who was the mouth of the trustees declared,' It is a
question of mere discipline, and not one of doctrine at all,' you do
commit tergiversation with a witness." The Moderator here interposed: "
The court does not commit itself to the allegation of Mr. Mann; we
consider it as a mixed question of doctrine and discipline." ]IIfr.
Irving. "I am very glad to hear that, sir; I am sure the contrary could
not be entertained. " The next thing which was asserted by the other party
in his speech was to this effect: That I called upon them to take my
assumption, and the assumption of the witnesses, that it was the voice of
the Holy Ghost. I assume nothing, but refer you
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APPENDICES. to the testimony. -And when was it ever heard that a witness
assumeth any thing, who only beareth testimony? and his testimony ye are
bound to take, for he is upon oath. " Ye yourselves chose them, led forth
the evidence, and requested that they should be put upon their oath, and
ye are bound to receive their testimony if it contradict not itself or
otherwise be invalidated. As you defer to the sacred obligation of an
oath, ye are bound to give sentence according to the evidence. Is a man to
take an oath in vain, that, after commanding them to be sworn, ye should
now declare that to be the mere assumption of the witnesses which is their
testimony upon oath? And' an oath for confirmation is an end of all
strife.' God could not go farther than an oath, and man can not go
farther; and when a man has given his testimony upon oath, are ye to call
that mere assumption? When a witness is upon oath, are ye to say that in
his heart he denies the responsibility on oath, and giveth forth
assumptions? It is to insult man; it is to insult God, in whose name, and
in whose presence he stands arraigned thus to speak; and honest men will
not abide it. Have you any thing upon your table in counter testimony? Not
a word. Here, then, you have the testimony of witnesses selected by my
opponents that this is not a work of enthusiasm or fanaticism, but a work
of the Holy Ghost (not their assumption, but their testimony); and surely
out of thousands they have selected men worthy of credit in the matter,
the testimony of men whom you required to be sworn to give evidence as in
the sight of God, and I say that it is an insult to the Sovereign Lord of
heaven and earth to make thus light of their testimony, unless an opposite
testimony may be given. The'Presbytery will look to it that the evidence
be not without cause traduced, otherwise they will be answerable to God,
whose name they have caused to be taken in vain, and to these witnesses,
whose solemn testimony, confirmed by an oath, they disregard. All law and
equity do regard an oath as the most holy of all things. Many men have
been hanged on the testimony of a single man; and here are three men,
chosen to make good the complaint, whose testimony beareth that it is all
the work of the Holy Ghost. Be ye ware, then, of the rash, unadvised
statements of one who talketh of the testimony of the witness as mere
assumption. And as to the other less important part of the charge, that I
assume any thing, I offered to prove it by the testimony of five hundred
men; and I strictly charged my adversaries, in the hearing of the court,
that if they judged me speaking any thing at random, or away from the
truth, they should challenge the same, and I would justify it on the spot,
out of the mouths of their own witnesses, summoned and sworn by
themselves. After these false charges against me and the witnesses, it was
said that to call it a work of the Holy Ghost was an outrage on common
sense and decency.. The good Lord forgive this word; forgive the lips, 0
God, by which it was ulttered! 0 God, forgive it, and let it not be
reckoned against a brother. [Here the reverend gentleman was much
affected.] "The next thing asserted in his reply was, That the doctrine I
laid down concerning this matter in my place of minister in this church
was the doctrine of popery, which he, as an Englishman and a Protestant,
could not receive. I founded the doctrine on the authority of two passages
of Holy Writ, namely, the two passages from the 2d chapter of Revelations,
concerning the duty of the angel of the Church toward afiostles and
prophets. Now if I, the minister, am not the angel of the Church, it hath
no angel; and the seven epistles can not be profitable to us, for they are
addressed to the angel of the Church. i The Great Head of the Church
approved the angel of the Church of Ephesus for trying the men who came
into the church, saying that they were apostles, and for putting them away
because he found them liars. Did the angel herein act wrong? why, then,
doth the Lord approve
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C. 605 him? What the Lord Jesus approves, this man may call popery and
tyranny. It mattereth not to me; I will continue to act so unto the end,
and will require both Englishmen and Protestants to submit to it. Another
passage in the same chapter rebuketh the angel of the Church of Thyatira
for allowing that woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to
teach, and to seduce the servants of the Lord. These were the grounds, and
no other, of the doctrine which I held, as I can appeal to every one of my
flock, even the trustees themselves. Yet I did not teach that it was the
duty of the minister in any congregation alone to bear the burden of this
responsibility; but it is his province to make trial whether they be true
prophets, and, being satisfied thereof, to set them before the
congregation; whereupon he and the congregation, acting together by the
Spirit of Jesus, will in due time ascertain the point. Nor would I
consider my office made void, nor yet that I did not discharge my office
of a faithful minister, if it should turn out that every one whom I had
set before the congregation as a prophet were not a true prophet. My duty.
standeth still the same though I may sometimes fail therein, and I am
bound to fulfill it to the best of my ability. Because I am not a perfect
man, because I have not the infallibility of God, I am not to shrink from
yielding obedience to the commandment of the Lord Jesus, and to put forth
whatever judgment, whatever discernment He hath given me. There is nothing
papal in. my doctrine. I do not presume to be infallible, nor even to take
the whole determination of the matter upon myself; for this were to offend
the generation of His children, and to trample on the rights of the people
and their duties also, which are to' try the spirits whether they be of
God.' If I were to say that I would not license any one to speak before
the congregation until I was infallibly certain he was a prophet, then God
would soon bring me to shame for standing between his people and their
duty. The angel's it is to license, the people's to approve or not; and it
is his to withdraw the license when it hath been abused. "This is the
doctrine which I had and have acted upon; I set before the people,
according to the best of my ability, those who had the signs of the
prophets, and said to the whole Church,'Now try ye them; they are before
you.' And for the purpose of gathering the common voice, I sat in the
vestry every day for many weeks, that the people might come to me, and
give in to me any doubts or distresses which pressed on their consciences.
I ask, was this a papal act? I deem it was my pastoral duty; it became me
as a dutiful minister of the Gospel. I think the gentleman should have
been at more pains to choose the words which he used before the reverend
Presbytery, especially when speaking of the actings of his minister. And,
when speaking so much of right, and justice, and good feeling, he should
have borne in mind that these are not the monopoly of any single
individual, but the constitution of man as the creature of God. Did I
charge any thing against any man, that I should be so abused with evil
words? When at one time you challenged the word I spoke, I appealed the
matter to the court, and it was decided that I had not spoken unadvisedly.
Yet was I contented to change the word, that no one might be offended;
because, as I have said, right, and equity, and good-feeling are not the
monopoly of any man, but the gifts of God to His responsible creatures,
which He must not suffer to be trampled on if He can prevent it. Let words
be well weighed in speaking before a court constituted under the Head of
the Church, especially when they affect the standing of a minister of
Christ, tOn which no standing on the earth is more dignified and sacred.
The opposite party next took occasion to animadvert upon an answer of one
of the witnesses, in that he had said that on one occasion, when he
thought he was speaking by the power of the Spirit, he came afterward to
see that he was speaking by a spirit of error; from which it was argued,
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APPENDICES. that if they knew not the spirit by which they spake, there
was nothing to rest upon but my ipse dixit. Before proceeding to reply to
this grave matter, I beg to recall your attention to the way in which the
witness gave that part of his testimony; for now I feel that we are indeed
come to the substance of the question, which turneth upon the evidence
before the court; and I do heartily wish that instead of so many
irrelevant strictures upon my defense, the gentleman had alluded more to
the matter in evidence. Observe, then, that this answer was a free-will
offering on the part of the witness, and not in answer to any
interrogations. Also, it was not from his own conviction, for he declared
that he had not yet come to the full conviction of not having spoken by
the Holy Ghost, but had some reason to suspect it from some misgivings of
his own mind, which had been mainly brought to light by the rebuke of
another member of the Church in whom the Spirit speaketh. And forasmuch
as, in giving testimony, we are called upon only to declare that which we
know and have fully ascertained to be the truth, there was no call to put
this forth, even if there had been a question leading to it, which there
was not; but, like a man whose conscience was rendered very delicate by
the teaching of the Holy Ghost, and as a man standing before a court which
should be constituted under Jesus, and have the spirit of holy
discernment, he would not allow a doubt on his mind to remain untold, nor
leave a chance of your being misinformed. It was a beautiful instance of
perfect purity of conscience, however little it was appreciated both by
the other party and the court, concerning which it is not my intention to
express what I feel. But with respect to the conclusion attempted to be
drawn from it, I must say that it betrays great ignorance of this Book of
God to draw such a conclusion, as we shall show immediately. But farther,
with respect to the testimony in answer to the question how he discerned
whether it was the Spirit of God or the spirit of error by which he spake,
his answer was, by the fruits: love, joy, peace, and other fruits of the
Spirit, which, at the time he had rebuked his pastor, he felt to be
absent, and not present with his soul.' He was then asked whether it lay
merely with his own feelings whether the spirit that came-to him was of
God or not, and he immediately replied,'Can I believe these fruits of the
Holy Ghost are from the spirit of error?' And so sayeth the Apostle John:'
He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that evil one toucheth him
not.' And now with respect to the conclusion which all, especially the
court, sought, by cross-questioning, to extort from this answer, I refer
them, for their better information, to the Prophet Jeremiah, who thus
speaketh to the Lord:'O Lord, Thou knowest; remember me, and visit me, and
revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in Thy'long-suffering: know
that for Thy sake I have suffered rebuke. Thy words were found, and I did
eat them, and Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart;
for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of Hosts. I sat not in the
assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of Thy hand;
for Thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my
wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt Thou be altogether unto
me as a liar, and as waters that fail?', Here we have the instance of a
prophet than whom no one had perhaps a greater' charge laid upon him, and
one most like to that now laid upon the prophets to be His witnesses
against a falling Church, and he was so carried beyond his understanding
as to say to the Lord,'Wilt Thou be altogether to me as a liar, and as
waters that fail?' And in the 20th chapter, verse 7, he uses str4iger'
language:' 0 Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.' If Jeremiah
had not known God's word by some other test than his own understanding of
it, or than the expected time and way of the fulfillment, his case would
have been desperate,- for he looks upon himself as a deceived man. Such
words from such a mouth may well make us to pause a little, and study the
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C. 607 law of the prophet's calling, and the temptations to which he is
exposed. Do not, I beseech you, be rash; let us not, coming straight from
the deep and dark ignorance which exists on such a subject, seeing there
have been of a long time no prophets in the Church, begin to draw
conclusions, and pronounce judgments, and do the part of legislators
before we have inquired into the standing of the prophet, or known any
thing of his conditions. Surely the Lord hath not lied to Jeremiah, and
deceived him; and yet the prophet supposeth, yea, and saith it, leaning to
his own understanding, and so stood in peril of being snared:' The word of
the Lord was made a reproach to him and a derision daily.' The calling of
the prophet is a fearful one; Jeremiah flinched from it because it brought
him into trouble, and the word which he spoke from the Lord was not
accomplished how and where he had expected. Jonah, who stood to Israel (2
Kings, xiv., 25) much as Jeremiah stood to Jerusalem, was so well aware of
God's relentings, and of the prophet's apparent dishonor thereby, that he
fled away from the presence of the Lord, and refused to be His prophet
unto Nineveh on no other account whatever, as he himself averreth (Jonah,
iv., 1). Let it not be for a moment imagined that God ever gave forth, by
the mouth of a prophet, any thing but the truth; yet so little were the
prophets able to construe their own messages, that they seemed ever to
themselves to be deceived in them. The prophet can not understand his own
utterances; if he could, they would not be manifestly from another mind,
but might be from his own. And I verily believe that any prophet who will
undertake to interpret, either to himself or to others, what he utters,
will- be snared. Sufficient, for one man is the honor of transmitting the
word pure from the fountain. It belongeth to those who hear it to find out
its meaning. It is from faith to faith that God ever speaketh. A dear
friend of my own, who lately spake by the Spirit of God in my Church, as
all the spiritual of the Church. fully acknowle'dged,'and almost all
acknowledge still —I mean Mr. Baxter, who is now in every body's
mouth-hath, I believe, been taken in this very snare of endeavoring to
interpret,'by means' of a "nind remarkably formal in its natural
structure, the spiritual utterances which he was made to give forth; and
perceiving a want of concurrence between the word and the fulfillment, he
hastily said,' It is a lying spirit by which I have spoken.' No lie is of
the truth; no prophet is a liar; and if the thing came not to pass, he
hath spoken presumptuously. But while this is true, it is equally true
that no prophet since the world began has been able to interpret the time,
place, manner, and circumstance of the fulfillment of his own utterances.
And to Jeremiah, thus unwarrantably employing himself, God seemed to be a
deceiver and a liar, as the Holy Ghost hath seemed to be to my honored and
beloved friend, whom may the Lord speedily restore again. "But to return
to the case of the Prophet Jeremiah: The notion current about the prophet
is, that he is a man sealed and set apart for infallible utterances. And I
perceived when the prophet who was examined as a witness before'you
confessed of his own accord to an utterance of which he now doubteth, you
shrunk from having any more'faith in his prophetical calling, or, if I
might say it, you triumphed as if you had gotten a'victory. But be it
known to you that-the prophet is, after all, still fallible; and that God
is the only infallible being, and the only infallible man is the Lord
Jesus Christ; and as for the infallibility in another, the Pope is the
oldest claimant of it, nobody else having dared to usurp it from the
Godhead and manhood of Jesus Christ. The prophet, indeed, and not only he,
but every Christian, while he abideth in Jesus, speaketh only the truth;
but as he leaves the light of life, so is he liable to snares, as was the
case with my brother, or I may say my child, in the Gospel. All the
prophecies and writings in the Scriptures were delivered by persons so
abiding in the communion of Jesus, and so moved by his Spirit to utter
only
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APPENDICES. the truth; but these very persons were liable to fall into
snares, and might at other times have spoken presumptuously. We have
several examples of the fact in the case of Peter, one of the holy penmen,
who at times both spoke and taught erroneously. God will not set up an
outward infallibility, but reposeth it in the teaching of the Spirit
through the faith of the word:'Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and
ye know all things.' What saith the Lord to Jeremiah?'Therefore, thus
saith the Lord, if thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou
shalt stand before me; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile,
thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee, but return not unto
them' (Jer., xv., 19). So say I to- the prophet who is now stumbled and
fallen, and to him who did once stumble, as he confessed in your hearing."
_Mr'. Mlaclean asked whether, in referring to a certain person, he meant
Mr. Taplin. 1Mr. Irving. " Sir, I was referring to Mr. Taplin indirectly,
and to Mr. Baxter directly; but, both to the one and the other, only as
illustrative of the prophet's standing, so entirely misunderstood and
misrepresented in the speech of the other party." An elder here
interposed, and defended Mr. Irving from the interruption, when he thus
proceeded: "II was reading and commenting upon the Word of the Lord at the
time the reverend gentleman interrupted me, and not putting forth any
notion of my own; and the word I read was this:' I will bring thee
again,', that is, from thy doubting and silence,'and make thee as a brazen
wall.' These things I submit to your consideration, not surely to lower
any man's idea of the prophet of God, still less to serve5 any particular
ends of my own, if I had any in this case, which is not mine, but that of
the Catholic Church, but in order to put you on your guard against the
statements of men who come straight from the counting-house or the shop,
and the other engagements of secular life, and rashly decide on such holy
and grave matters. Your only safety is to look to the law and the
testimony, to the' experience of those holy men who stood in the same
office heretofore. To this bringing back your attention I refer again to
the Prophet Jeremiah:' O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived:
Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily;
every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and
spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a
derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any
more in His name; but His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up
in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.'
(Jer., xx., 7-9.) Whatever was the cause, whether he thought God had not
kept His word made to him when He called him to the prophet's office
(Jer., i., 17-19), or whether some of his utterances had seemed to himself
and the people to fail, or whether the Lord had relented, as Jonah knew to
be his manner, this is clear from these verses, that a prophet may be
shaken from his position like another man, and may be left to take the
resolution of speaking no more in the Lord's name, as hath been the case
with my dear brother referred to above, who now restraineth himself from
uttering in that power which he and we believed to be of the Holy Ghost,
because he thinks it hath deceived him. A prophet may be a very unstable
man, and be brought into great doubtings, and yet be a true prophet
withal; may grieve and dishonor God very much, and yet be retained in His
service, and exalted to very great lionor. What, then, is the guide of the
prophet in judging of the power that comes to him in vision, in
revelation, in utterance? It is a clean conscience,' at peace with God,
rejoicing in holiness, and averse from all evil, to which God coming
maketh sweet harmony of truth and love therein, and useth the tongue to
give it forth in words worthy of God. But that the prophets did not
understand the things they prophesied, Peter, in his first epistle, ex
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C. 609 pressly declareth,' Of which salvation the prophets have inquired
and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto
you; searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was
in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that
not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are
now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you with
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to
look into' (1 Peter, i., 10-12). The law of the prophets is, as I have
said, that they should not understand the thing they did utter, to show
that they were speaking, not by the understanding of man, but by
inspiration and the utterance of God. If the prophets spake by their own
understanding, what were the prophets more than a meaner man; and I may
observe, in passing, that the mystery of the unknown tongue introducing
the utterance is to teach us that the thing about to be uttered, as it
cometh from a higher source, addresseth itself to another ear than that of
the natural understanding, even to the discernment of the Spirit of Christ
with us, and that the meaning is hid from the prophet himself; that as
neither prophet nor people understand the tongue, so neither prophet nor
people are to receive or render out by the understanding the thing
uttered. It is not by the understanding, though of a Bacon, that a word of
God can be apprehended; for'the natural man perceiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God, for they are spiritually discerned.' "'The universal
law of all divine truth is exemplified, and, as it were, embodied in the
act of speaking in an unknown tongue, when the spirit of the speaker is
edified, though his understanding be unfruitful; having entire communion
with God in spirit, though entirely darkened in the understanding; which,
after all, is no more than the most orthodox truth, that without the
Spirit of God the word of God availeth not unto any fruit of life, but
only unto death:' the letter killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive.' The
prophet's own understanding is as incompetent as the hearer's to interpret
his own utterances; and he, as much as we are, is driven upon the
indwelling mind of Christ, in order to have fellowship with the word of
the Spirit in his own lips. The spiritual man discerneth all things, and
every one having the anointing of the life of Christ abiding in him hath
the means of discerning and testing the things spoken by the prophet; for
Christ and the Spirit are one in the substance of the Godhead, and the
Holy Ghost doth only take of the things of Christ, and show them to our
souls. Some of the questions put by the opposite party, but still more put
by you, the judges, went to- reveal a base suspicion, as if I were lording
it over, or acting in collusion with the gifted persons. Oh, perish the
thought! I pretend not, save as a pastor, to direct the order of the
Church, and as a minister to show the mark and stamp of the Spirit of God
in the matter and form of the utterances, leaving things future, and
things which I discern not, to be opened by the Lord in His own time.
"Jeremiah hasted, and fell into the sin of charging God falsely, and stood
in peril of falling entirely, if he had not returned and separated the
precious from the vile. But it may be said this is not in point; it is not
so exactly in point as that case-to which I now refer you, the Prophecy of
Ezekiel, xiv., 8-11:'And I will set my face against that man, and will
make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my
people; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. And if the prophet be
deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that
prophet; and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him
from the midst of my people Israel. And they shall bear the punishment of
their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the
punishment of him that seeketh unto him; that the house of Israel may go
no more astray from me, neither be polQQ
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APPENDICES. luted any more with all their transgressions; but that they
may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord God.' Let those
who think a prophet, whose lips are sealed up for infallibility, and if he
utter any thing amiss that it countervaileth and subverteth all which he
hath ever spoken, peruse this passage, which is only one of many wherein
the prophets are constantly reproached for their unfaithfulness, as well
as the priests and the princes. Our adversaries argue that because a
prophet, speaking by the Spirit of God, hath been once deceived, this doth
invalidate his speaking by the Spirit of God at other times, and therefore
he is no prophet, and speaketh not of God. But what saith God?'If the:
prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived
that prophet.' Now the meaning of this will be best explained by referring
to the instance recorded in 1 Kings, xxii., 15-16, where Micaiah came to
the king, who said to him,'Micaiah, shall we go against Ramoth-gilead to
battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, Go, and prosper; for the
Lord shall deliver.it into the: hand of the king.' We may, I think, hardly
doubt that this word came from Jehovah, in what way he hardened Pharaoh's
heart, and doth lead the wicked into temptation. God permitted Micaiah to
utter it as a word to try the temper of the king, and reprove his levity
and his tampering with the prophets of the Lord. But when the king became
serious, and adjured him, saying,'How many times shall I adjure thee that
thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord,' God
seeing the king's mind turned to earnestness, and hearing him speak to His
prophet as His prophet should be spoken to; giveth to His prophet another
word which might prevent him from the evil he meditated, and not lead him
into temptation to commit it. Most true it is, as saith St. James, that'
God tempteth not any man;' but when a man will suffer his own lusts to
tempt him to evil, the Lord, wearied out with correcting him, and having
no profit of His rebukes, doth ofttimes lead him on that He may punish him
for his iniquity on this side the grave, and haply save his soul in the
day of the Lord. Therefore spake Jesus in parables, that "seeing they
might not see, and hearing they might not hear, lest they should be
converted, and I should heal them.' Ye may say this is strange doctrine.
Strange indeed it is to a man who can not think of vengeance in his God,
whereas vengeance belongeth unto Him; but how should it be strange to any
father or mother who is practiced in the education of their children? How
oft doth a father, having sought in vain by counsel and correction to heal
the perversity of his child, permit him in a little of his own will, yea,
lay the very temptation in his way, that he may prove the evil of it, and
so avoid it in the time to come. And shall not God be intrusted with the
same liberty in disciplining a prophet or a people? Shall He not also lead
His children, and give them to taste of the fruit of their own ways? Nay,
He will and ever doth with the wicked as He did with Pharaoh, and it is a
chief part of His discipline with strong-headed and high-handed sinners.
Wherefore also we pray continually,'Lead us not into temptation.' And this
did He that day by Ahab, by making Micaiah the instrument without
misleading him. Micaiah was not deceived; but a word through him would
have deceived the king, unless he had changed his mood, and adjured him
solemnly in the name of the Lord, who straightway answered,'I saw all
Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a shepherd; and the
Lord said, These have no master; let them return every man to his house in
peace' (1 Kings, xxii., 17). This case proveth that a prophet, without
fault of his, may be used to deceive a king or a pastor, a people or a
flock. But still this is not the case in point; for it was through fault
of the prophets that the evil before us fell out. In such a case, I
believe it ariseth from opening the door unto Satan, through some unholy
state of his heart. It certainly was so in the present instance. The
prophet
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C. 611 had conceived suspicions of me as not dealing uprightly, but
partially; and as not comforting him in his trials, but helping on the
affliction. This was entirely a misjudgment; and being against a pastor,
it added the sin of insubordination to that of uncharitableness. Through
this door Satan entered in, and the Lord permitted him to occupy for once
the gift which the prophet had not kept by the Holy Ghost, as Paul
commandeth Timothy to do (2 Tim., i.). These are deep things, and I would
not be understood to give out any thing dogmatically concerning it. But it
shows that a prophet may be deceived, and be a prophet still; and it
teacheth how rash and foolish are they who question and reason as if that
one thing subverted the whole question. The direction given by the Lord is
this:'And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the
Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if
the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord
hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt
not be afraid of him' (Deut., xviii., 21, 22). Such a prophet loseth his
credit and standing with the people, and maketh shipwreck of his calling
toward God. And every prophet standeth in jeopardy of this, and there is
no other safety for him than for others.' My grace is sufficient for thee,
and my strength is perfected in weakness.' Our brother did it in that
instance presumptu'ously: as a prophet, he did it in the power of a
prophet, and he hath suffered loss for it in his own soul; but, now that
he hath openly and of free will confessed it in the hearing of all, I
believe that he hath delivered his own soul, how many soever he may
stumble thereby; myself he stumbleth not, because I have somewhat studied
and understood the law of the prophet. And should a prophet, therefore,
deem his standing to be unsteady or unsafe? Surely not. He standeth by
faith, as every one else doth stand in Christ. Nor is there any other
safety in the world but abiding in Christ. Jesus, who lived by faith upon
the Father, did always speak the truth; and the prophet who liveth by
faith on Christ will, with the same certainty, speak nothing but the
truth; and not he alone, but every Christian. For the anointing which we
have received is true, and no lie. If I, as a minister, abide in Christ,
my utterances will always be true. And how are the people to be defended?
In the same way, by abiding in Christ, and hearing the prophets, without
suspicion, as the voice of the Holy Ghost. If they look upon it as lies,
they disgrace and trample on the ordinance, and will be punished for the
same. Yet, if they rest in reverencing the ordinance, without seeking the
answer of the Spirit of Jesus in their hearts, they do neglect the
Ordinance-Head, which is still worse, and they shall speedily be shut up
in superstition, and given over to the idolatry of men and of gifts, to
the destruction of that love which is the life of Jesus, and of God within
the soul. And yet a church, and their minister, and their prophets, all
standing together faithfully in Jesus, may, nay will, certainly be tried
with temptations from Satan as an angel of light, who will endeavor to
introduce heresies and schisms, or to bring in hypocrites, false brethren,
unawares; or will entrap some weak, foolish ones, and through them seek to
prophesy his lies and to minister his delusions. But in such a case the
Lord will, in due time, detect him, through the faithfulness of the
brethren, and the poor lamb will be delivered out of the lion's mouth, and
the lion will be driven away from the fold. "A prophet is not sent for a
Single person nor for a family, but for the Church; and if the Church
abide in truth and love, they will not be misled though all the spirits of
hell came forth against them. Moreover, if a Church, having prophets sent
to them, as my Church hath, will not abide in Jesus, but look to the
prophet as if he were something, the Lord will chasten that Church by the
mouth of that prophet, who is ever more jealous of Christ than he is of
himself. But if the prophet shrink from rebuking the Church, pastor and
all, then will the Lord take the other
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APPENDICES. way of rebuking both him and the people, smiting him their
idol, and making him to stumble and fall. And if they are inclined to set
him above the pastor, and the pastor be faithful, the Lord will justify
the pastor; all to teach that the prophet is nothing apart from Christ,
even as it is written,'Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers
by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted,
Apollos watered; but God gave the increase' (1 Cor., iii., 5, 6). If the
prophets have done me any good, it is in teaching me to do nothing without
Christ, and to dare to do every thing in and by Christ. They have made me
bold for my Master, for myself a very coward. And the same effect I covet
for my people. All these things have I spoken, that ye might understand
the law and the prophets, whereof we are all woefully ignorant. So may the
Lord guard you from rash and ignorant judgment. " The notion now
subsisting in the Church concerning the prophet is that he gave signs
supernatural, on the credit of which he was to be believed without farther
question; and concerning inspiration, that it was an enforcement of the
organs of speech, whereby they could not utter any thing but the truth.
The former notion subverts all moral responsibility in the hearers; the
latter doth the same by the prophets; and both together do make God first
to extinguish responsibility, in order to bring in that word whereto all
are to be responsible. We have shown the utter falsehood of the notion as
respecteth the prophet, who was no more an infallible person than is the
Pope; being liable, like every other man, to be drawn aside, as was Jonah,
by his distrust of God; and he standeth only by his faith. This only had
he above other men, that the conviction of truth within him is wont to be
sealed to him by a supernatural revelation of light and power in
utterance; which, however, he possesseth not for his own private use, nor
for the use of any private family or society of men, but for-the whole
Church of God, yea, and for the whole world. Of the other part of this
bare and baseless hypothesis, which now holdeth the Church concerning the
traduction of infallible truth from God to man-namely, that the prophet
hath but to give a miraculous sign, and let him say what he pleaseth, must
be believed; and if any one doubt, he hath but to thrust forth another
wonder into the midst of the beholders, and carry on his revelation-I will
just quote against it one of the great standing rules of God, as given in
all parts of His Word. In the Law of Moses it is written thus:'If there
arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign
or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto
thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and
let us serve them, thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet,
or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know
whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear Him, and keep His
commandments, and obey His voice, and ye shall serve Him and cleave unto
Him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death,
because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which
brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of
bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded
thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee'
(Deut., xiii., 1-5). Was the sign or the wonder to authenticate and verify
the word uttered by the prophet? No; but the law and the testimony were to
verify the sign. And, if they did not attest it, the prophet was to-be put
to death, all signs and wonders notwithstanding. So now have I dealt by
the prophets whom the Lord hath sent into my Church, trying every thing by
the written Word of God, and at no rate permitting any deviation
therefrom, or inconsistency therewith, to have any authority, though
uttered with all the tongues of men or of angels. And among many
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C. 613 hundreds of instances spoken'in the midst of us, the greatest
doubter, the greatest opposer, hath been able to discover nothing
repugning from the Holy Scriptures. Yea, even in one case which there hath
been strong reason to suspect not to be from God, so carefully hath God
overruled -the enemy, that out of his mouth nothing hath been permitted to
issue but glory unto our God and His Christ. Yet do the majority both of
ministers and of people stand aloof from the work on no other ground but
this, that there are no signs and wonders, thereby confessing that they
are willing to judge God's Word by the light of the eye and by the hearing
of the ear, but on no account by the discernment of the Spirit of Jesus
within them, from which folly let them be delivered by reading the 2d
chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. The signs and wonders
are demonstrations of supernatural power; but whether from the region of
spiritual good, or of spiritual evil descending, the fact of their being
above nature determineth not. This is to be known by their character, of
grace, and goodness, and blessing, or of violence, and malice, and
destructiveness. The diabolical possessions were witnessed in the torture
which they brought, and the Divine power in delivering from the same, and
bringing back to peace of conscience, soundness of mind, and health of
body. And so shall it continue to be evidenced unto the end; an evil
spiritual world contending with the good in all supernatural acts, in
order, if possible, to seduce the faith and obedience of men. The speakers
for the one are false prophets, for-the other are good prophets and
nothing can discriminate between them but the honest and good heart, which
discerneth between good and evil; and the life of Jesus in the believer,
which, being of one substance with the Holy Ghost, doth well know His
voice, and the voice of a stranger will not follow. I marvel greatly at
the doting, dreaming Church, which for the last century, in all
universities and colleges, and in all books of evidence, hath been
teaching men to look only or chiefly to the external evidence to the
things in time or place, the tradition of miracles, and so preparing a
snare for the taking of the whole Church, in which all the book-learned
and book-readers are at present holden almost to a man, and bound fast.
And the common people have escaped only because they are not readers of
Paley, Lardner, Macknight, and the host of their followers. " What test
our Lord gives to distinguish true prophets from false you have written in
these words:'Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by
their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even
so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth
forth evil fruit. A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit, neither can
a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth
good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits
ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven' (Matt., vii., 15-21). Do they produce the fruits of
righteousness in those who give ear unto them, and obey their words? For
themselves, their disguise may be complete' in sheep's clothing,' though'
inwardly- they are ravenous wolves;' and their words may to the ear be
sound and true, but inwardly they are'ravening wolves,' and will infuse
the same spirit into those who follow after them. This spirit will express
itself first in a spirit of zealous proselytism; for, until they can get
the sheep from under their proper shepherds, they can not so well get
their wicked use out of them. Then, when they have got them incorporated
into a sect, they work them to their ends, seducing them to commit all
manner of iniquity with greediness. Thus was it exhibited in the heresies
of the primitive Church, which came in through false prophets, possessed,
I make no doubt, in the instances of the Gnostics and the Manicheans, with
seducing spirits, propaga
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APPENDICES. ting doctrines of devils, and ending in abominations hitherto
unpracticed, and even unheard of in the world. But the true prophets are
for edification, exhortation, and comfort of the Church of God, for
bringing them up into the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now if you
can observe any features of error, or fruits of wickedness about us, or
about those who adhere to us, then bear testimony against us. for we
desire nothing more than to have our errors exposed, that we may correct
them. But if the fruits upon the minister have been greater light, love,
faith, and watchfulness; upon those who follow his faith, greater
holiness, communion, and obedience, as even our enemies are forced to
confess, then do you greatly offend the Lord in not applying His test, but
judging those to be false prophets who by their fruits do prove themselves
to be true ones. The evil fiuits which are produced in the people upon
whom false prophets practice I have had occasion to know and to observe in
the followers of Joanna Southcote, who are a people full of evil
possessions; and also in many persons acting as prophets among the
ignorant of this city, and actually possessed of familiar spirits capable
of divination. And I can lay this down as an invariable rule, that the
conscience of truth is deadened in them all,'having their conscience
seared as with a red-hot iron,' and the natural strength of the will
altogether gone. Irresolute and without determination, they are the slaves
of the spirit which overruleth them; and, when speaking in their own
understanding, the great, almost the whole bent of their discourse is to
justify and magnify the Spirit by recounting the wonderful
prognostications which IHe hath given to them. But it is a certain
characteristic of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father, that he doth
notltestify of limself, but of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the witness of
whom He is given. When a false spirit getteth hold of an ingenious and
cultivated mind, I do observe that it leadeth him into all manner of
wanderings, as it did the Gnostics of old, and destroyeth all mark of
truth in subtle niceties, striking analogies, and mazes of doctrine of
which I had read in the first ages of the Church, but never dreamed of
seeing them equalled, yea, and surpassed in our days. Furthermore it hath
befallen me, within these twelve months past, to have had personal
knowledge of members of Christ's body, upon whom the subtle enemy hath
made diverse attempts to seduce them from their integrity by taking the
form of an angel of light, and in most cases it hath been attended with
the fruits of disgrace in their own souls; and when permitted to proceed
through ignorance or mistakes as to its true character, hath ended in the
entire subversion of confidehce toward God and the brethren, to suspicion
of, yea, and insurrection against the ordinance of the pastor and of the
Church itself; or it hath ended in dazzling the mind, and deceiving the
conscience with such shows of light and love as to make it utterly
impervious to the counsel of the brethren, to the authority of rulers,
yea, and to the voice of the Holy Ghost Himself. The various experience
which I have had during the last twelve months of the work of the Holy
Ghost and the work of Satan, hath convinced me that, until the discernment
of spirits shall be given as a distinct gift in the Church, there is no
rule so certain as that which our Lord hath given of trying them by the
fruits. And taking this rule, I must solemnly declare that, if the fruits
of the Spirit be'love, peace, joy, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness,
patience, temperance,' these fruits have been produced by the Spirit
speaking in our Church, whether you respect the persons in whom Ile
speaketh, or those who have grace given to recognize and confess it as the
Holy Ghost. "Besides this universal test of our Lord, there be others of a
more special kind given by the apostles, which I have found available in
some cases for the detection and exposure of evil spirits. The
confession'that Jesus Christ is Lord,' and that'Christ is come in the
flesh,' hath, in my own experience, sufficed to detect an evil
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C. 615 spirit; and in other cases, when an evil power was present, there
hath been such ample confession on these heads as would deceive the most
wary and sagacious inquirer. There is a mystery in this which I do not
thoroughly understand; but it seems to me that besides evil possessions,
when another spirit is actually present in the person of a man, there is a
power which Satan putteth forth through the flesh, to imitate and
counterfeit the utterances of the Holy Ghost through the spirit. For the
former case I believe it is that the test of the apostles is given; but
the latter case yieldeth only to the rule of our Lord,'Try the prophets by
their fruits,' or to the discernment which is given to one prophet of
another, in order to keep his order pure, and to preserve a brother from
the attempts of Satan through the flesh. But it is not convenient in this
place to go into the details of an experience which would fill a volume.
Only these things I have said for the end of clearing a little the matter
of true and false prophets, and to show how utterly erroneous is the
notion universally current, that a prophet is to be tried by the miracles
which he can do; as if there were no evil region in the spiritual or
supernatural world, as well as in the visible and natural. Let the
Presbytery be upon their guard against the sweeping and loose conclusions
of the opposite party, who would have you to believe that nothing will
prove a man to be a prophet but unchangeable infallibility. I can not go
into all the trials with which this work of God bath been tried of the
enemy. But I will say this in general, that as well that which hath been
referred to, as every other, have been permitted of God, in order to show
the work to be His, who ever cometh forth to suppress and defeat them all.
As, in the days of our Lord, Satan's kingdom was manifested in demoniacal
possessions that Jesus might be proved not to have a devil, but the Holy
Ghost in casting them out, so among us hath Satan's power in utterance
been permitted, in order that the work of the Holy Ghost might be proved
in detecting and exposing them, and putting them to silence. When they
charged Jesus with casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils, he answered,'A kingdom is not divided against itself.' So can I,
the minister of the Church in which the Holy Ghost hath manifested
Himself, say to those who allege that it is a work of Satan, Satan would
not cast Satan out —Satan would not silence Satan. In every form have I
seen Satan seek to insinuate himself into this work and mar it, and as
often have I seen him withstood by the supernatural power which speaketh
among us in tongues and prophesying, whereby I know that it is the power
of God-of Jesus, the vanquisher of Satan-of the Holy Ghost, in that very
form in which He was manifested in the day of Pentecost. " The next
allegation is, That I have, with no very great kindness, charged on the
trustees and complainers that they have absented themselves from the
church, and at once denounced the doctrine without investigation or
inquiry. It is not necessary for me to refute this farther than to state
what I said. What I said was, that instead of coming to the church to hear
the utterances and try the spirits, a great portion of the trustees
refused to come near us any more, and would not even hear the spirits,
much less try them; and so they come up to the Presbytery causd incognita.
I did not say that all had done so, but that a great portion of the
trustees had so; and if it is not true, let them now gainsay it. But you
perceive they do not. "The next charge is, That I suffered unauthorized
persons to speak in the church. My answer is, They were not unauthorized
persons. I authorized them; in the right, in the plenary right which I
possess as an angel of the Church of Christ, I authorized them,; and the
man liveth not who can come between the Lord Jesus and me His minister, so
as to set that authority aside. I do not say that my authorizing of them
is credentials enough, but that my Master only can control me in the
exercise of that authority. The allegation, therefore, is not true. They
were fully author
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APPENDICES. ized. I say it in the presence of ministers of the Gospel, of
the angels and elders of the churches; and in defense of this right, which
I must not surrender to any man or to any body of men, I appeal again to
the express command of the Lord himself, in two of the epistles to the
Churches, and no one can say that this is not good and sufficient ground
of my right. " Then I was taxed with dishonesty; and I was told, if I was
an honest man, I ought to have gone forth of the church. Let me repress
the feeling that riseth in my bosom while I repel the insinuation; for I
must not speak out of the resentment of nature, but out of the charity of
grace. Dishonesty! if it be such a moot point and simple case of honesty
and dishonesty, why trouble they the Presbytery to consider it? Ye trouble
the Presbytery, do ye, to adjust a question of common honesty and
dishonesty? It is a great and grave question, affecting the right of the
ministers and prophets of the Christian Church; a question of the most
deep and sacred importance; a question, not of discipline only, but of
doctrine; and is a question of doctrine, and of discipline, and of
ordinance, and of personal right, to be called a question of common
honesty, as if I were a knave? Ye, being the judges, ought not to have
permitted the complainers thus to speak of a reverend brother, and twit me
as I was twitted. Ye were quick-scented after their honor, but mine -they
might trample under foot. My well-known character among you ought to have
protected me from this allegation. It was not right in you to permit it;
nay, but they themselves know me too well not to know that I am honest, at
least, according to the measure of a fallible man, for I do ever aim to be
honest. These insinuations are not honorable to you nor to me; ye should
not have permitted them to be uttered of a brother. It is to me a question
of great and momentous duty, which hath cost me long, laborious, and
painful thought. Was it a small matter for me, when planted the minister
of the Church of Christ, and secured in the possession of that house
during my life, unless I should be guilty of some crime disqualifying me
for the ministry, to surrender the post in which God, and the Church, and
the covenants of man had planted me, to the discontent of a few men, to
the opinions of any number of men, whom I believed in my heart to be
grieving both God and His Church by their rash and indiscriminate, their
hasty, heady, and unfounded judgments? Seeing they rest so much upon the
trust-deed, I also am a party to that document, representing the Church of
God, the flock of believers, and a numerous congregation, whose petition
to be heard at your bar upon the issue you have rejected. If these men be
parties representing the house of stone, and brick, and lime, and timber,
I am a party representing the flock of believers, gathered unto Christ
under my ministry, through whose generous contributions, chiefly, the
house hath been both builded and upheld; and being placed as their
representative in the trust-deed, I ask if it was a small matter that
should move me to consent to go forth from the habitation and home of our
souls, and wander, we know not whither, over this wide and wicked city,
where we have no Church that will call us sister, or welcome us to an
hour's shelter under their roof? These men seem to have little knowledge
of the thoughts for my flock which have exercised and wearied, and, but
for our God's presence, would have overwhelmed my heart, else they would
not have spoken of it as they have done, as if it were a question of
private feeling, and not of great and grave responsibility before God and
man. My personal right in that church never once came into my mind. The
condition of my wife and young children, cast out upon the wide world,
never once was spoken of among all the strivings which we have had
together upon this question in the kirk-session and congregation. Every
one felt that the question was altogether one of a higher region; and it
doth indeed amaze me to hear it now, for the first time in this presence,
spoken of as a personal question merely, and the sim
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C. 617 plest of all personal questions, namely, whether I was to act the
part of an honest man by removing, or of a knave by abiding in the Church.
Even in cases where a minister hath done something in direct violation of
his ministerial standing, preaching heresy, or practicing schism, or
breaking the moral law, he may not be called upon to leave the Church out
of hand, but must be proceeded against by libel; and even in civil matters
a man may not be degraded from his office, or deprived of his liberty,
upon any confession of his own, but upon the judgment of his peers,
because we are guardians one of another, members of a community: how much
more in a question like this, where there are neither written statutes,
nor precedents, nor common practice whereon to convict me, except, indeed,
the statutes and precedents of the Word of God, which are altogether on my
side. But, to cut this matter short, is it not upon your table in evidence
that this is a work of the Holy Ghost? and can there be any statute
forbidding the Holy Ghost to speak in His own temple? And if He do speak,
must I, as an honest man, call upon my flock to go forth with me from the
house in which He has spoken as if it were defiled, and forever
disqualified from being the house of our worship and our peace? "This is a
temptation which has come over my brethren, arising from their loose and
unholy way of thinking and speaking upon this subject, as if it were a
common bargain between the trustees upon the one hand and myself on the
other. I would it had been such: neither you nor they would have been
troubled with it this day; for the world is wide, and the English tongue
is widely diffused over it, and I am used to live by faith, and love my
calling of a preacher of the Gospel as well as I do my calling of a
pastor. I also have been tempted with the like temptation of making this a
question of personal feeling. One whole day, I remember, before meeting
the elders and deacons of my Church, before the first breaking out of this
matter, I abode in the mind of giving way to my own feelings, and saying
to them,' Brethren, we have abidden now for so many years in love and
unity, never, or hardly once, dividing on any question, that, rather than
cause divisions, which I see can not be avoided, I will take my leave of
you, and betake myself to other quarters and other labors in the Church,
and do you seek out for some one to come and stand in my room, to go in
and out before this great people, and rule over them, for I can be no
longer faithful to God, and preserve the body in peace and unity. I can
not find in, my heart to grieve you; let me alone, and entreat me not; I
will go and preach the Gospel in other parts, whither God may call me.' In
this mood, which these men would call honest and honorable, which I call
selfish and treacherous to my Lord and Master, I did abide for the greater
part of the most important day of my life, whereof the evening was to
determine this great question; but the Lord showed me before the hour
came. He showed me, with whom alone I took counsel in the secret place of
my own heart, that I was not a private man to do what liked me best, but
the pastor of a Church, to consider their well-being, and the minister of
Christ, to whom I must render an account of my stewardship. I put away the
temptation, and went up, in the strength of the Lord, to contend with the
men whom I loved as my own bowels; and to tell them, face to face, that I
would displease every one of them, yea, and hate every one of them, if
need should be, rather than flinch one iota from my firm and rooted
purpose to live and die for Jesus. God only knows the great searchings of
heart which there have been within me for the divisions of the kirk-session
and flock of the National Scotch Church. But they have rooted and grounded
me in my standing as a pastor, which I had understood, but never practiced
before, and in the subordinate standing of an elder, which is very little
understood in the Church of Scotland, whereof I am minister. And they have
knit me to my flock in a bond which can not be broken until God do break
it. I preferred my
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APPENDICES. duty as a pastor to my feelings as a man, and abode in my
place. And what hath the faithfulness and bounty of my God yet done?
Within six months thereafter, by the preaching of the Word, and the
witness of the Spirit, there were added two hundred members to the Church,
not a few of whom were converted from the very depths of immorality and
vice to become holy and God-fearing men; and as I sat yesterday in my
vestry for nearly five hours examining applicants for the liberty of
sitting down with my contemned and rejected Church, I thought within
myself,' Ah! it was good thou stoodest here in the place where the Lord
had planted thee, and wentest not forth from hence at the bidding of thine
own troubled heart. Behold, what a harvest God hath given thee in this
time of shaking! Wait on thy Lord, and be of good courage; commit thy way
unto Him; trust in Him, and He will bring it to pass.' These were my
thoughts, I do assure you, no farther gone than yesterday, when I sat
wearied out with the number and weight of the cases which were brought
before me in my pastoral vocation. And for your encouragement, 0 ye
ministers of Christ! who sit here in judgment, that ye may labor with good
hope in this city, through good report and through bad report, that ye may
not put your hands rashly upon the man of God and the work of God, I do
give you to wit, that by my labors in this city, not hundreds, but
thousands, at least upward of a thousand, have been converted by my
ministry; and I feel an assurance that, let men do their utmost to prevent
it, thousands more will yet, by the same feeble and worthless instrument,
be brought into the fold of the Father, out of which no power shall be
able to pluck them. I have no bargain with these trustees. I am not their
pensioner, nor bound to them by any obligation, nor indebted to them in
any manner, that they should charge me with dishonesty. I am another man's
servant, another man's debtor. Their debtor, indeed, I am, to preach to
them the Gospel, and to guide them, as their pastor, into the way of
righteousness. If this deed, to which they have obliged themselves, compel
them to raise an action against me before this Presbytery, then let them
do it; and leave the issue to the competent judges; but do not let them
dare to accuse their minister as a dishonest man, because he sees it his
duty to his Maker to abide where his Maker hath placed him, and where he
hath offended neither against the ordinances of God nor the'covenants of
man; and, on the other hand, ifany trustee should see that in raising such
an action he doth offend against the laws of God, then let him not do it,
and abide the consequences. For it is better to lose the right hand and
the right eye both, than knowingly to offend against God. No action of a
man in times past can bind him up in the time to come, that he should not
always be at liberty to serve God. But this is not the place for handling
these questions, and I conclude this topic of my adversary's speech by
solemnly charging the Presbytery that they be not beguiled into such short
and summary views of the question before them. It is a question of
deposition, the deposition of a minister from those rights which, as a
minister, belong to him. Now ye know well what an onerous thing it is
accounted by Christ and his Church that a minister should be deposed by
his Presbytery. Remember, I am a man of unblemished character; there is no
charge against me of any kind; but the very contrary, the testimony of the
other party to my blameless and faultless conversation among them unto
this day. When this Presbytery rashly charged a book of mine with heresy,
these very men, many of them, did come forward of their own accord to
repel the charge, and vindicate me against a thousand malicious reports as
a true, and faithful, and orthodox minister of Christ. And bear ye in mind
that ye are not at liberty to take up any matter but that which is
exhibited in the charge of the trustees. Ye have me legally before you,
not in your character of a Presbytery, but of referees under this deed; in
that character, and that only, have you any power against me, The ques
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APPENDIX
C. 619 tion is, simply, whether I, a pastor, shall be deposed from the
Church, and deprived of my rights as a minister of Christ, because I have
permitted that to take place in my church which all the evidence upon your
table concurreth to testify is the speaking of the Comforter, whom Christ
promised as being to abide with his Church forever, to lead her into all
truth, and to show her tlings to come. Is this enough to incur deposition?
Give heed to the question which is before you: as pastors having the
hearts of pastors, as elders having the hearts of elders, can you conclude
this day that a brother elder and pastor shall be deposed because he hath
suffered the voice of the Comforter to be heard in the Church? This is the
question which these men, by indictment and by testimony, have laid upon
your table; it is before you, a Presbytery of the Church of Christ; and
remember ye that it is not in a corner, but in this, the chiefest' city of
the world; before all Christendom, yea, before all nations; before the
great Head of the Church, yea, and before the throne of the Majesty of God
on high, that these matters are to be adjudicated, and this issue to be
tried and determined, namely, whether a blameless and unblemished man
shall have the last censure of the Church pronounced upon him, and be
deposed from his ministerial office, because he has allowed the voice of
the Holy Ghost to be heard in his church; for I maintain that it is in
evidence, on the table of the court, that it is the voice of the Holy'
Ghost that speaketh in the Church. Ah! there never was such an issue
before any court-abstract justice being alone. considered-as is now before
this court; where a body of trustees, stepping out of their proper place,
have impugned their minister, placed over them by the great Head of this
Church, of a criminal act, in permitting God to speak in His own house;
and you, a body of ministers and elders, acting under Christ for God, are
called to give sentence. "And here I must set aside a poor and pitiful
evasion with which they would seek to beguile you from' seeing the
greatness of the issue which is this day joined between the parties. With
great appearance of helpless meekness, they come forward and say that they
can not help themselves; they can not avoid the responsibility imposed
upon them by the trust-deed; and they come up, seeking from the Presbytery
to be delivered from the dilemma in which they stand, being alike content,
whichever way it be determined, so that they have exonerated themselves of
their duty to their trust. To this I answer, with all plainness of speech,
that they have altogether forgotten their place, through the deceitfulness
of their own heart; and being supported by the force of public opinion,
have gone aside from their trust, which hath nothing to do either with
discipline or with doctrine, or with ordinances of any kind, but simply
with this matter of fact, whether the minister be of the Church of
Scotland, and the worship be according to the constitution of that Church.
Leaving which, they have dared to bring me before the Presbytery for
changing no ordinance, for breaking down no constitution, for denying no
point of orthodox'doctrine, for abolishing no rule of discipline; and what
business have they to interfere at all? I pronounce them daring
intermeddlers with my sacred functions, which I will not yield up to any
man;' and if you have any honor- of your office, or resentment of
impertinent intrusion, you will send these men back again from your
reverend bar with an injunction to distinguish better hereafter between
the office of a trustee over a building, and the oversight of the great
Head of the Church over the angels of the Churches, whom He heldeth in His
right hand. If I have not been guilty of a gross, yea, of a capital
offense against my ministerial standing, these men have no case; they have
no business here; they grieve me, and they grieve you alike, by their
impertinent forsaking of their trust to meddle in things which are too
high for them. It is yours to teach trustees what their place is; and if
you do not give them this lesson with all faithfulness, you shall, in the
just visitation of God, be trodden and trampled upon by the
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APPENDICES. men who attend to the secularities of your several chapels. I
charge you, by the duty you owe to these men, as well as to me and to
yourselves; I charge you, by the sacred immunities of the ministerial
office, by the sacredness of covenants, by the bands of justice, by the
appointment of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, and by the ordinances
of Almighty God, that ye be not deceived by such wily words, but that ye
bear upon your heart and in your mind what an awful issue it is that ye
are called upon this day to decide. Ye shall not, surely, escape the
consequences of this day's judgment if ye should entertain these men's
complaint against their minister, and remove me from the church where I
abide in all faithfulness in the Lord. They will cleave to you while you
live; they will cleave also to your flocks; and chiefly will they cleave
to this ecclesiastical court. You will be borne a while upon the gale of
public opinion; you will please yourselves with the idea of having put
down a delusion of Satan, and honors may fall upon you from your superiors
in the Church; but when you shall see the spark which you have sought to
smother burst out into a flame, mighty to consume you, and all opposers of
the Spirit of God; when ye find that cloud, about the bigness of a man's
hand, which ye scoffed and mocked at, overspread the heavens, and pour
down the torrents of the latter rain to fertilize the earth; when you see
these despised fanatics grow into the mighty witnesses of God, who have
power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, and
to turn waters into blood, and to smite the earth with plagues as often as
they will, in what light will ye appear to the men whom ye have misled
from the beginning of the glorious work, which ye thought too mean to give
heed to, though it hath been pressed upon you by every consideration by
which men can be moved? Oh! I am not careful for myself; but truly I am
very careful for you, that you may not err in this great question which
you are called upon to decide. "The next charge made against me (for,
instead of answering my speech, the gentleman hath raised against me a
series of the most momentous charges) is expressed in these words:' He
begged to call the attention of the reverend defender to the solemn
Confession of Faith which he had signed, he believed, without any mental
reservation, though he had told them that, if he had believed the signing
of it would have prevented him preaching any thing which he thought was
right, he would not have signed it. Having been ordained a minister of the
Church of Scotland, he had declared the Confession of Faith, ratified by
law in the year 1690, to be the confession of his faith, and that he owned
the doctrine therein contained to be the true doctrine, which he would
constantly adhere unto.' And if these words mean any thing, their meaning
is, that, in virtue of having subscribed to the Westminster Confession of
Faith, my hands are bound up from permitting the voice of the Comforter
from being heard in the church whereof I am pastor. It were sufficient to
ask in what place of that Confession is that interdict laid upon me? and
so to wait for a reply; for none was quoted in proof of so grave a charge.
I am sure that no such injunction is to be found in the standards of the
Westminster, or any other divines since the world began. - At most, all
that could be produced out of these books is the declaration of the fact
that the extraordinary gifts had ceased in the Church, and with them the
extraordinary offices, in opposition to the Romanists, who maintained that
they were still present. But, waiving this question of fact, which had
nothing to do with the matter, and upon which I am very much at one with
them, where is the declaration that Almighty God neither would nor could
ever again raise up these offices by again communicating these gifts to
the Church? If there be any such declaration in the Westminster
Confession, let them produce it; but till they produce it, I hold their
insinuation to be no better than a gratuitous and empty assertion of their
own, dishonoring me in your eyes, and tending to turn justice from its
course. And,
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APPENDIX
C. 621 supposing that there were such a declaration in that Confession, I
would immediately countervail it with the declaration in the Second Book
of Discipline, that these extraordinary offices of evangelist, prophet,
and apostle, God, for extraordinary purposes, might again raise up. And I
would add, that the Westminster books were to be taken as in nothing
prejudicial to the form of sound words and the canons of dis.cipline
originally agreed upon by the Scottish Church when she was ordering the
house of God in that realm according to His Word, and under no misleading
views of uniformity with the English Presbyterians. I then would say the
office of the prophet hath been revived of God to meet the extraordinary
emergencies of these times, wherein the whole of Christendom is receiving
a last warning from the God of mercy before meeting him as the God of
judgment and revenge. The same is in testimony upon your table, out of the
mouths of my accusers, and I call upon this Presbytery of ministers and
elders of the Scotch Church to examine whether it be so or not. Such is
the firm basis of ecclesiastical as well as of Scriptural doctrine on
which I have to rest this cause. "But while I do thus argue for the
truth's sake, and for the honor of our standards, which, be they what they
may, have been most unjustly forced to do service in this cause against
the Holy Ghost, I am far from assenting to the doctrine which was stated
in your hearing, and hath been vented by some of yourselves, concerning
the obligation involved in subscribing of articles; and, in a few words, I
desire to expose the fallacy and evil tendency of the views on this
subject which I find to prevail almost universally in the minds of honest
men. They seem to regard the Confession of Faith as the pillar and ground
of the Church, whereas the Church itself is the pillar and ground, not of
the confession only, but of the truth itself. The Church hath no basis but
the living and glorified Jesus, who is the fullness of' the Godhead and
the Head of His Body the Church, from whom nothing can divide our
allegiance in the least, no, not for a moment. Every book which the Church
hath at any time stamped with its authority, the same Church doth stand
above and not beneath, to take away its authority if it please, to let it
fall into disuse, or entirely to abolish it. The book doth not stand over
the persons, but the persons over the book. But most of the members of my
session, and I perceive also of this Presbytery, and even of the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, think the Church resteth wholly upon
the basis of the Westminster Confession, and is cemented with that band,
which is to sell both Christ and His people into the hands of a body of
men who lived and acted some two hundred years ago. A confession of faith
issued by any minister or body of ministers is good as their testimony for
the truth against error, and may be adopted by the Church as a landmark in
the midst of the wilderness of man's opinions; but the Church may-not
impose it upon men as an obligation Godward, seeing every thing of that
kind God hath Himself written and preserved in the Holy Scriptures. When I
subscribe to it, I add my name to those that have gone before me,
declaring that I believe the things which are written therein, and, as an
honest man, will do and say nothing to the prejudice of what I believe.
But my liberty as Christ's free man, my prerogative as Christ's minister
and guardian of truth, remains unimpaired and unimpeached; for there
existed no power upon the earth which dareth to meddle with these, whereof
the Church is the guardian, but in nowise the maker, or the mender, or the
abolisher. And after subscribing that confession, I am just as much at
liberty to compare and examine all its doctrines as before; and, finding
fault in any of them, I am beholden unto Christ and to the Church to point
out the same, and have it set to rights. And this I ought to do in all
places, but especially in that corner of the vineyard committed to my
care, among the people over whose souls I watch, in the meetings of the
elders, of the ministers, in the synods and assemblies
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APPENDICES. of the Church; for, as hath been said, the person is above the
book, and not the book above the person. It is not so with the Word of
God, just because it is God's Word; it is so with every word of man,
because it is man's word; for that man is not under man, but under God.
The ecclesiastical courts in Scotland have, during the last three years,
held more false doctrine and judged more wicked judgments on this matter,
and more:grieved God and Christ, and the generation of His children, than
did the Council of Trent; and I would sooner be exiled from my native
land, and excommunicated fiom my mother Church, ay, and mewed up all my
life in the dungeons of the Inquisition, than seal to such doctrines, or
take part in such judgments, against which I have ever lifted up, and now
again do lift up, my solemn protestation, as outrageous popery, sanctified
with the name of common honesty. The reason why such treasonable doctrine
findeth currency among the ignorant as nothing else than common honesty is
because they think that a confession of faith is like the charter of a
corporation, and the signing of it by a minister is as an apprentice
signing his indenture; they think it is like a deed of copartnery, to
violate which is a distinct infraction of honesty rectified by positive
covenants. And the clergy, instead of teaching them better, know in
general no better themselves, and head the hue-and-cry against every
enlightened and sound churchman who declareth the true doctrine as laid
down above. And so it is that, after all manner of arguments and
expostulations, I am content for Christ's sake to lose my character, and
sit down under the foul charge of being a dishonest man. But while I am
content to lose it, I will do all I can to keep it, and therefore I make
no hesitation in declaring before you that I subscribed the Confession
without any mental reservation or partial interpretation, having carefully
read it, and pondered it, and consulted the minister of the parish when I
stood in doubt. In subscribing it, I honestly declared it to be the
confession of my faith, and never at any time did say or meditate any
thing to its hurt. But, being a Christian and a Protestant, I subscribed
it as itself directeth, not as being absolute truth, self-vouching, but
truth under the correction of the Holy Scriptures, whereto it desireth to
be brought for examination, and by which I will ever try it. Indeed, I
have, since I subscribed it, thought little about the matter, being intent
altogether upon the right knowledge and declaration of God's mind as
contained in the Holy Scriptures. Only I have made it a rule to read it,
in the hearing of the Church, once or twice in a year, which I am resolved
to do no more, because it is the word of fallible man, and not of the
living God. Yet do I not feel burdened by having subscribed it, but walk
in great liberty with respect to it, keeping it far, far in the background
of my mind, neither troubling myself nor my people concerning it. Only
when I have had to handle a matter controverted, I have taken it as
evidence of what the Church thought upon'the subject in that day. I grieve
over the bondage and dishonesty of my brethren in these times; their
bondage in declaring that a man's preaching should be guided by the
Confession, as if he were a preacher of man's word, and not of God's Word;
as if the Westminster Confession were to say to the Holy Ghost in the
preacher,'Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther;' their hypocrisy, in
that, saying thus, not one of them hath ever acted on, or ever doth act
upon it; forasmuch, I believe, that no book in the English language hath
been more out of the mind of preachers in the pulpit or in the closet than
the Westminster Confession of Faith, whereof, till it became a convenient
weapon for dashing out the brains of faithful ministers, far more than
half of the clergy were ignorant despisers or hearty haters. Oh, the
hypocrisy, the seven-fold hypocrisy of this generation of churchmen! I
abhor the hypocrisy with which they perpetrate their wickedness fat more
than the wickedness itself. They lovers of the Westminster Confession of
Faith, forsooth! A great part of them know nothing about it, and a still
greater
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C. 623 part heartily dislike it. Oh, I know Scotland too well, and have
looked into the bosom of the priesthood too narrowly, to be taken with
that cant about the Confession! But what, it may be said, hath this to do
with the matter in hand? It is the spontaneous boiling up of my
indignation against the mummery which they have set up in order to catch
the honest-minded people of this land into their snares, and carry their
verdict along with -them in the persecution of the most worthy men which
the Church of Scotland hath for long ages produced; yea, men in some of
whom the primitive gifts of the prophet and the evangelist have been
revived. My heart boileth, and fury cometh into my face when I think of
the way in which the people have been hounded on to the slaughter of the
most famous men in'the congregation. But a higher end than the expression
of my indignation moveth me in what I have said concerning the.treasonable
doctrine advanced to you respecting confessions of faith. It is my firm
and rooted conviction that by these acts of setting up the book of men in
judgment over Christ's ministers, as they have done, and by insisting that
no evidence should be grounded upon the Scriptures, as ye have done, both
ye and they have sealed yourselves Babylon, and have set up the
abomination which maketh desolate in the holy place. For what is your
Confession, taken at the best, but the skillful device of man's wit? With
all its doctrines and its canons, with all its distinctions and divisions,
what is it but the device of man? And when ye set it in the pulpit, and in
the place of judgment, in the house of God, and in the meetings of elders,
what is it but your idol, the image of jealousy, your drag and net to
which you sacrifice your sons and daughters, yea, the rulers and chief men
of the Lord's congregation? I believe, by the way in which you have set up
that book of about two hundred years' standing, in the place of and above
God's Word, ye have done an act which, if not repented of, will seal you
up in darkness and in deadness, in apostasy, and the worship of
anti-Christ. And being myself the head of a congregation, and a
standard-bearer in the Church, I do solemnly denounce you as in arms
against the King, and lead forth my squadron from the midst of you, to do
battle no longer by your side, but against you, until you do change your
ensign, and fight under the banner of the Word of God. "Do I therefore
secede or separate myself and my Church from the Church of Scotland?
Verily no; but from a. degenerate race of her rulers, who are unworthy of
the name, and have sold themselves to do iniquity with greediness, and to
draw sin as with a cart-rope. The Church of Christ, within the realms of
Scotland, is now of at least 1600 years' standing, and subsisted in great
glory before the stream of the Reformation, in times when her children
went forth and planted the Gospel in the dark regions of the world, amid
the. fierce and unconquered nations who overwhelmed the Roman empire; when
her ministers went forth into the court of Christian emperors, and warned
them against the Bishop of Rome, and watched and exposed him, and
denounced him the enemy of Christ in all the nations of Christendom. I am
a minister of that Church which received into its bosom the persecuted
Britons, fleeing from the murderous decrees of Diocletian; which received
the Culdees from Ireland, and maintained her independence of Rome for
centuries after the other churches had sold themselves into bondage. Nor
do I disparage the work of Knox and the Reformers when:I set it down as
but the brazen age of the Church, now degenerated into the age of. iron.
And this age of iron was, I think, introduced by that same Westminster
Confession, which received royal authority at the Revolution. Knox, and
the men of his time, raised up a noble protestation against the papacy,
and ordered the Church according to righteousness in her discipline, and
in her doctrine coming behind none of the reformed churches. But the
Reformers were too intent upon the mere negation of popery, and upon the
emancipation of
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APPENDICES. the civil estate of kings and peoples, upon leagues and
covenants constructed for the preservation of what they had made good.
They lacked discernment in the truth of God; they digged not deep enough
in the Holy Scriptures; they saw not the glorious privileges of the
Church, her spiritual gifts and supernatural endowments, the coming antd
kingdom of the Lord, and the blessed offices of the ever-present
Comforter. I am in no wise fettered by their shortcomings, I have no
homage to offer at their shrines, but in my liberty of Christ's free-man,
in my prerogative of Christ's minister, I am intent upon the knowledge and
faith of all the truth written in His holy Word, and do perceive a work
arising into view which will far surpass the work of Reformation, and
bring back the best days of the Church. I make no doubt that the Lord is
hearing the prayers and rewarding the labors of his servants, and bringing
to pass all the promises of the glory of the latter day. Ye are this day
either to exert yourselves for or against this blessed work; either to
stand with it and prosper, or to stand against it and be overwhelned.
Small are its beginnings, but faith apprehendeth its great and glorious
ending. The cloud, like a man's hand, hath appeared; and the heavens shall
soon be black with clouds, the earth moistened with rain, and all her
fields clothed with plenty. "Having thus followed the reply of the
complainers, topic by topic, I trust you will permit me to add one word in
conclusion, in order to express what I feel toward them, the prosecutors,
and toward you, the judges in this cause. Though they know it not, and are
far from thinking it, I know, and feel, and declare that they are enemies
of the cross of Christ in that which they have done; and if they persist
in it, they must draw down upon themselves the wrath and indignation of
Almighty God. My counsel to them, therefore, is instantly to withdraw
their suit out of court, as they wish to prosper in this world and that
which is to come. And this request I make of them the more earnestly,
because I do not feel that I am personally much concerned in it. They have
impeached me of nothing, but have spoken both courteously and honorably of
me, in the hearing of this court, and on all other occasions. It is the
work of the Holy Ghost which they have set themselves against, whereof I
am but a poor instrument to justify and defend it; and against the rights
and dignity of the Christian ministry, in my person represented, they have
conspired together, under the pretended sanction of a trust-deed. Enemies
they are in this act of the Lord Jesus and of the Holy Ghost, whose
enemies I may not take for my friends, but as enemies must henceforth
regard them; for I hold it to be the sacrifice of God's honor upon the
altar of worldly prudence, or personal courtesy, for any servant of the
Lord to call one who is actively setting himself against God by any other
name than his enemy, and as such to entreat him. I can not any more give
to these men the right hand of fellowship, or go forward in company with
them to any work. Until they repent of their sin, and turn themselves unto
the Lord with confession and contrition, I must hold them for my enemies,
because they are risen up against my King. And thus also must I carry
myself to all those ministers and elders of the Church who have risen up
against God's truth in my native land, and smitten from the altar where
they ministered the chosen ones of God's priesthood. It is a vain thing,
and a wicked, to make distinctions between my personal friends and God's;
neither will I do it any more, being mindful of the example of Christ, and
of the words spoken of him by the Holy Ghost, in the Book of Psalms:' Do
not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee; and am I not grieved with those
that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them
mine enemies" (Psalm cxxxix., 21, 22). I would that the trustees, my
brethren, heretofore my friends, and most of them of my flock, might not
be offended in this, because I love them not the less; for my enemies I
have learned to love, and for them I desire at
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C. 625 all times to be willing to die. But, whatever offense it may cause
them, it is better to offend man than to offend God. I bear them no
malice, but contrariwise love; and the first act in which that' love doth'
show'itself is an act of honest testimony that they are the enemies of the
cross of Christ, and are entered on a'course of withstanding the Holy'
Ghost, which will bring them to perdition if they return not from it to
serve the living and true God, whose voice in-His Church they are this day
combined to suppress. I could fall down' before them, and beseech them;
yea, I could weep before them, and wash their feet with my tears, for the
love I bear their souls, and their wives, and their little' ones, if only
I might thereby' prevail to turn them back from their pernicious ways. If,
by any thing which I have spoken, I have caused them grief and sorrow, I'
rejoice if their'grief be for the sin they have done in moving for
authority to cast out the Spirit and minister of the Lord Jesus Christ;
but if, which I rather fear, it be only the natural shame of having their
evil deeds'exposed, which grieveth -them; I priay them to' look away from
the eye of man to the eye of God, which is this day bended upon them
with'looks of mingled anger and mercy. In no way could they have so
grieved and offended Him as in this which they have taken;. but still
there is mercy, if they will repent of their sins, and lie low in the'
dust before Him. I am much troubled-in spirit for you, oh my brethren, who
have now become my enemies, though you'all joyfully and plentifully
partook of the spiritual bread which:I have long broken in the midst of
you. Oh, ye have grievously offended me, ye have grievously offended your
God! Seek repentance, and withdraw this evil suit from the court of the
Presbytery.' I will not cease to pray that God will grant'you repentance
unto the acknowledgment of the truth; otherwise, ye will surely' perish in
your sins. I say it again, ye know it not, but surely ye' are the enemies
of the Lord'your God in this matter. " And now, to you, 0 ministers and
elders of the' Presbytery, before whom God hath condescended to take
witness, and to plead in this cause, bringing before you four of the
orders of His Church, a minister, a prophet, an elder,'and a deacon, and
through their lips testifying in your ears that He hath returned in grace
and mercy to His Church, and is speaking in the midst thereof by the mouth
of the Holy Ghost, reckon ye that He hath put upon you an honor and shown
you a love whereof ye are altogether unworthy, because He is gracious, and
His mercy endureth forever. You have wearied him in times past with your
iniquities, whereof I stand here a witness, rejected from among you for
holding, and publishing abroad, the most glorious truths'of His
incarnation in this our fallen flesh; and ye have this day added a still
greater provocation, in that ye have refused, with one voice, to permit a
question of the most awful'importance from being judged according to His
most Holy Word. Fain would I that you might revoke with shame and sorrow
that unprecedented act of contempt toward the Word of your God, which He
doth magnify above all His name, in order that you might enter with pure
hands and a clean heart into the judgment of this mighty issue. Do not
gloze it over to the eye of your conscience by saying, as your Moderator
did, that it was for the honor of the standards, and not against the Word
of God, ye stood up. There was no mention of the standards in my lips, nor
thought of them in my mind; no one was calling them into question. I did
but ask whether the thing manifested in our Chuich answered to the thing
written of in the Scriptures, when, lion-like, ye rushed with one mouth
upon me, as if I had appealed to Satan's oracles. It was a fearful deed,
and, being gravely deliberate, for you submitted it as a question to the
court, and heard their opinions seriatim, it is the most black'record of
wickedness which this day the eye of Heaven doth look upon-a gratuitous
insult to the Word of our God, and a planting in the stead thereof the
abomination that maketh desolate. For the most excellent work of men, yea,
Ri
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APPENDICES. and of God himself, when planted in the place and stead of His
Word-in the holy place of judgment and ecclesiastical government-becometh
straightway the abomination which maketh desolate. I can not suffer you to
pass on to judgment without beseeching you to revoke that gratuitous
insult to your God. How else can you expect the Holy Ghost to sit in
council with you, without whom you are no Presbytery of the Church of
Christ? And how can we expect, in the thing which is questioned, ye will
give impartial justice, if ye, in the thing that is unquestioned, do offer
deliberate insult unto your God? There may be a question, even with pious
but uninformed minds, whether these be the very manifestations of the Holy
Ghost.; but no question is there, or can there, be, that this book is the
Word of God. And if ye refuse reverence and weight of any sort in this
cause to these undoubted oracles of God, how can ye give any weight to the
testimony of men, however clear-to the pleading of a man, however strong?
Nor doth it matter to me, though I should get your verdict on my side, if,
at the same sitting, my God should get a verdict against Him. I can not, I
will not rejoice; I must sit down by the rivers of Babylon, and weep over
the miserable fall and ruin of those with whom I went in company to the
house of God, and took sweet counsel together. Why will ye thus, for no
cause, grieve the Spirit of your God? Why will ye trample His laws and His
statutes, which make the simple wise, under your feet? Who will you thank
for that? The Scottish Reformers will repudiate you from their company
with horror; and all Christian men of this day will do likewise; and your
flocks will pine and perish; and all honest men will wonder and be amazed
when they hear that out of a court of judgment the Word of God was cast
willfully and deliberately; that the court where it was done was a court
of Christ's Church; and the occasion, when they were sitting in judgment,
the work of the Holy Ghost, by whom that Book was given, for the guide and
measure of His operations. I am indeed amazed and astonished at you; I am
ashamed and terribly afraid; I could almost arise and run for my life from
beneath the roof which overcanopied the perpetrators of such a wickedness.
It is not to be reckoned up. The sum of it is only surpassed by the mercy
and forgiveness of our God, where I do cast you with prayers, and
supplications, and strong cryings, that it might not be reckoned against
you. Oh! it is such a blind as will entirely cover up justice whichever
way the Presbytery may decide. But, oh! I can not think of your deciding
against me; I can not entertain the thought of it. It goes to my heart to
put the supposition. Not because it is against me, but because it is
against the truth. It is not I that am decided against, but it is you, the
pastors and elders of churches, that are decided against. You stand as the
representatives of the congregation; and if you err, the judgment falleth
on the congregation and the Church; for Christ holdeth the angel as the
representative of the Church. Far be such evil from my brethren; from my
enemies far be it. By dismissing the complaint the trustees entertain no
loss-they have exonerated their conscience as they plead-and there is no
evil done to any one. But, oh! I set no store by these considerations. I
would not mention consequences in such an issue. I have not done the part
of a pleader, nor will do it, save to plead for the Word and Spirit of
God.: I do.merely point to the opposite consequences of entertaining or
rejecting the complaint; but, lest any one may think that I am doing the
part of a special pleader, I put that away. Show me what I have done
contrary to the Word of God, contrary to the office of a minister of
Christ, contrary even to the standards of the Church; then show that the
offense is of such a magnitude as can not otherwise be healed than by
deposition, and, without troubling you, I will contentedly go forth. There
is no complaint here of elders or deacons, or flock or congregation,
concerning their souls or my ministry, but simply of the trustees over a
building. And what
APPENDIX
C. 627 have they instructed in evidence but that I have permitted the Holy
Ghost's voice to be heard in the Church, without prejudice to any person
or to any ordinance? That you should entertain such a complaint, that you
should justify it, that you should ratify it, I can not endure to think,
and can not- speak under that supposition. Wherefore I do just leave it in
the hands of God, and in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of
the Church, to do with me and my flock and congregation what He pleaseth;
but never, never, oh God! and oh, thou Head of the Church! never suffer
this court of ministers and elders, for their own souls' sake, for any
advantage, even though it were to gain the whole earth, to decide that the
voice of Thy Spirit shall not be heard in Thy Church! Amen." THE END.
Edward Irving
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