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CHAPTER XVII
1832.
"Bedlam" and " Chaos."
THE next
year began with but a gradual increase of darkness to the devoted
household, from which old friends were failing and old ties breaking every
day. It was no lack of affection which necessitated those partings; but
utter disagreement in a point so
Page 447
"BEDLAM"
AND "CHAOS." 447 important, and the growing impatience of the sensible,
"practical" men around him for that impracticable faith which no motive of
prudence nor weight of reasoning could move, inevitably took the heart
from their intercourse, and produced a gradual alienation between Irving
and his ancient brethren. Other friends, it is true, came in to take their
place-partisans still more close, loyal, and loving-but they were new,
little tried, strangers to all his native sympathies and prejudices,
neither Scotch nor Presbyterian, and, with equal inevitableness, took up
an attitude of opposition to the older party, and made the pathetic
struggle an internecine war. On all sides the friends of years parted from
Irving's side. His wife's relations, with whom he had exchanged so many
good offices and tender counsels, were, to a man, against him; so were his
elders, with one exception. His friends outside the ecclesiastical
boundaries were still less tolerant. Thomas Carlyle and his wife, both
much beloved, not only disagreed, but remonstrated; the former making a
vehement protestation against the "Bedlam" and " Chaos" to which his
friend's steps were tending, which Irving listened to in silence, covering
his face with his hands. When the philosopher had said, doubtless in no
measured or lukewarm terms, what he had to say, the mournful apostle
lifted his head, and addressed him with all the: tenderness of their
youth-" Dear friend!"-that turning of the other cheek seems to have
touched the heart of the sage almost too deeply to make him aware what was
the defense which the other returned to his fiery words. None of his old
supporters, hitherto so devoted and loyal, stood by Irving in this
extremity; nobody except the wife, who shared all his thoughts, and
followed him faithfully in faith as well as in love to the margin of the
grave. In the midst of all these disruptions, however, he snatches a
moment to send the good wishes of the beginning season to Kirkealdy Manse:
" I desire to give thanks to God that He has spared us all to another
year," he writes, " and I pray that it may be very fruitful in you and in
us unto all good works. We have daily reason to praise the Lord. He gives
us new demonstrations of His presence among-us daily. There is not any
Church almost with which He hath dealt so graciously. May the Lord revive
and restore His work in the midst of you all! I would there were in every
congregation a morning prayer-meeting for the gifts of the Spirit." These
brief words mark, however, the limits to which he is now reduced in those
once overflowing domestic con
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ROBERT BAXTER. fidences. He can but utter with an unexpressed sigh the
still affectionate good-will, and make a tacit protest against harsh
judgment by fervent utterances of gratitude for the manifestations of
God's presence. Sympathy of thought and spiritual feeling was over between
those close friends. Very early in this year, the little band of " gifted"
persons, whose presence had made so much commotion in Regent Square, and
of whom we have hitherto had no very clear and recognizable picture, is
opened up to us in the narrative, which I have already referred to, of one
of the most remarkable among them, Mr. Robert Baxter, then of Doncaster.
Having but recently appeared within the inspired circle, this gentleman
had made his utterances with so much power and authority, that already
adumbrations of an office higher than the prophetic overshadowed him, and
he seems to have taken a leading place in all the closest and most sacred
conferences of the prophets. He had been for some years known to Irving;
his character for godliness and devotion stood high; and he was so much in
the confidence and fellowship of the minister of the Church in Regent
Square as to have been, before any gifts had manifested themselves in him,
permitted occasionally to conduct some part of the service in the morning
prayer-meetings. At length he spoke, and that with a force and fullness
not yet attained by any of the other speakers. "In the beginning of my
utterances that evening," he says in his narrative, "some observations
were in the power addressed by me to the pastor in a commanding tone, and
the manner and course of utterance was so far differing from those which
had been manifested in the members of his own flock* that he was much
startled.... I was made to bid those'present ask instruction upon any
subject on which they sought to be taught of God; and to several questions
asked, answers were given by me in the power. One in particular was so
answered with such reference to the circumstances of the case, of which in
myself I was wholly ignorant, as to convince the person who asked it that
the Spirit speaking in me knew those circumstances, and alluded to them in
the answer." This further development of the gift, after a momentary
doubt, was received with still fuller gratitude and trust by Irving, who
comforts himself in his desertion by communicating the news as follows to
his distant friends, one of whom was in perfect accordance with him, while
he had still hopes of the sympathy of the * Mr. Baxter was a member of the
Church of England.
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THE, TWO
WITNESSES. 449 other. To Mr. Macdonald he conveys the intelligence in
haste, and with perfect confidence of being understood: "London, 24th
January, 1832. "The Lord hath anointed Baxter of Doncaster after another
kind, I think the apostolical; the prophetical being the ministration of
the Word, the apostolical being the ministration of the Spirit. He speaks
from supernatural light, and with the choice of words. Neverth'eless, the
word is sealed in the utterance. It is more abiding than the prophetical,
though sometimes for a snare he is locked up. It is authoritative, and
always concludes with a benediction." In more detail, and with pathetic
appeal and remonstrance, he communicates the same news to Mr. Story,
transmitting the message itself, as well as the claims of the messenger to
increased honor and reverence.' London, 27th January, 1832. " MY DEAR
BROTHER,-It has been said in the Spirit by a brother (Robert Baxter, of
Doncaster; he has written several papers inll the Morning Watch) that the
Two Witnesses are two orders of anointed men, the prophets and the
priests, the one after the Old Testament, the other after the New
Testament form; -the one those who speak with tongues, and to whom the
Word of the Lord comes without power to go beyond or fall within; the
other the apostolical, in whom the Spirit of Jesus dwells as in Jesus
Himself for utterance of every sort with demonstration of the Spirit and
with power. For the last six months the Spirit hath been moving him, and
uttering by him privately; but his mouth was not opened till Friday week,
when he was reading the Scripture and:praying at our early service. From
that time for more than a- week he continued [among us*] speaking in the
power and demonstration of the Spirit with great authority, always
concluding in the Spirit with a benediction. To me it seems to be the
apostolical office for which I have had faith given to me to [pray] both
publicly and privately these many months. I gave him liberty to speak on
the Lord's day, but God did not see it meet. A clergyman of the [Church]
had the faith to give him his pulpit last Sunday, when he prayed in the
Spirit. He said in the Spirit that the two orders of witnesses were now
present in the Church, the 1260 days of witnessing are begun, and: that
within three and a half years the saints will be taken up, according to
the 12th chapter of the Apocalypse. (This is not to date the Lord's
coming, which is some time after His saints are with Him.) Also, he said
in the Spirit, that ordination by the hands of the Church is cut short in
judgment, and that God Himself is about to set forth by the Spirit a
spiritual mninistry, for which we ought to prepare the people. That both
the Church and the State are accursed; that the abomination of iniquity is
set up in this land, and that here the witnesses will be slain; that many
people, multitudes, will be gathered of the people, a goodly number of the
nobles, and the king himself given to the prayers of his people; * This
letter is torn and partly illegible. The few words in brackets are filled
in from the evident meaning of the context.
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BAXTER'S NARRATIVE. but that the nation and the Church will be else
destroyed. That the pestilence and the sword will overflow the land, but
the people of God preserved; and that those who are looking for the coming
of the Lord should set their house in order, and be sitting loose. These
things I believe, some of them I understand, others I have not yet
attained to. I write them for your reflection; do not make them matter of
news, but of meditation. The Lord greatly blesses my ministry. His way is
wonderfully opened among us, and those that know Him gather strength
daily. I have no doubt that He is preparing the way of a great work in my
church, through much reproach and apparent foolishness. My own soul hath
greater entrance unto God. The Lord is leavening this city with His truth.
Every night there are several places at which the men of the congregation
gather the poor to discourse to them. I seldom preach less than seven
times a week, and we meet more than two hundred every morning for prayer
in the church at half past six o'clock, and continue till eight, and have
done it the winter through. I intermingle it with pastoral admonitions,
and the Spirit speaks almost every morning by the prophets and
interpreters. Oh, Story, thou hast grievously sinned in standing afar off
from the work of the Lord, scanning it like a skeptic instead of proving
it like a spiritual man! Ah! brother, repent, and the Lord will forgive
thee! I am very much troubled for you; but I rejoice in your returning
strength. God give you unmeasured faithfulness!... " Your faithful friend
and brother, EDwD. IRVING. " Mrs. Caird is a saint of God, and hath the
gift of prophecy." Mrs. Caird thus referred to, the gifted Mary Campbell
of the Gairloch, who appears to have been again in London, and to whom
Irving bears such emphatic testimony, had by this time failed to satisfy
the expectations of her former pastor and oldest friend, the minister of
Rosneath; and the sentence of approval pronounced with so much decision
and brevity at the conclusion of this letter addressed to him was Irving's
manner of avoiding controversy, and making his friend aware that, highly
as he esteemed himself, he could hear nothing against the other, whose
character had received the highest of all guarantees to his unquestioning
faith. Our history has little directly to do with this remarkable woman,
who does not appear distinctly even in the revelations of Mr. Baxter; but
I am happy to have it in my power to refer my readers to the biography of
Mr. Story, which has been already mentioned, for many most interesting and
powerful sketches of the secondary persons who crossed and influenced in
different degrees the faith of Irving. None of all the prophetic speakers
who at this time wrought into the highest dramatic excitement the little
world of Regent Square appears before us in such recognizable personality
as does Mr. Baxter. He tells his strange story with all the intens
Page 451
THE
INNER WORLD REVEALED. 451 ity of passion, and that unconscious eloquence
which inspires a man when he chronicles the climax and culmination of his
own life. In the wonderful sphere revealed to us in his little book, the
detail of ordinary circumstances scarcely appears at all. Outside, the
office-bearers are holding melancholy consultations how to deal with this
Church, in which practices contrary to the usual regulations of the Church
of Scotland are undoubtedly taking place every day-how to soothe or
persuade the friend and minister, so dear to them all, into moderation,
conformity, indulgence for their scruples, if not into their own
common-sense view of the entire matter. We have already noted this side of
the question; how they consult and reconsult-how they invite to sad
argumentative meetings the tender heart which, torn by every fresh
argument, would surrender every thing, even his life, but can not
relinquish his duty and conviction; how, as the lingering days wear on,
his position, his daily bread, his children's subsistence, and, dearer
still, his honor and good fame, and that standingground within the Church
of Scotland which in his heart he prizes more than life, hang in the
balance, no one knowing when the sad assailants may open the last'parallel
and the final blow may fall. Nothing of this outside scene, though it
proceeds at the same moment with all its real and pathetic particulars,
wringing some hearts and grieving many, is visible in the closer sanctuary
within, where Mr. Baxter draws the curtain. There life lies rapt in
ecstatic flights of devotion, yet with an inward eye always turned upon
the movements of its own heart-there sudden supernatural impulses, fiery
breaths of inspiration, seize upon the expectant soul-there, in a
mysterious fellowship, prophet after prophet,'with convulsed frame and
miraculous outcry, takes up the burden and enforces the message of his
predecessor, by times electrifying the little assembly with sudden
denunciation of some secret sin in the midst of them, over which judgment
is hanging, or of some intruding devil who has found entrance into the
sacred place. The fact that these awful assemblies are in the first place
collected to dinner makes an uncomfortable discord in the scene, till the
chief seer of the company becomes himself uneasy on that score, and
declares "in the power" that this assembling with a secular motive is
unseemly, and must be no longer continued. But the meetings themselves
continue daily, nightly, the record flowing on as if life itself must have
come by the way, and these reunions alone have been the object of
existence. I quote at length
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IRVING RETAINS HIS INFLUENCE AS PASTOR. in the Appendix from this most
remarkable narrative. The passionate closeness of the tale, the reality of
the scene, the longdrawn breath and gasp, scarcely calmed out of that
profound emotion with which the speaker tells his story, are more emphatic
witnesses of his truthfulness than any proof. In this strange drama Irving
appears more than a spectator and less than an actor. He is there
listening with fervent faith, trying the spirits with anxious scrutiny,
his own lofty mind bringing to a species of ineffable reason and proof
those phenomena which were entirely beyond either proof or reason, both to
the ecstatics who received them unhesitatingly, and to the skeptics who
could not receive them at all. In the case of Mr. Baxter above described,
"the pastor" was " troubled," fearing that this new development of the
utterance resembled the case of "two children in Gloucestershire who had
been made to speak in wonderful power, and who afterward were found to
speak by a false spirit." " He came up to me," says Mr. Baxter,' "and
said,'Faith is very hard.' I was immediately made to address him, and
reason with him in the power, until he was fully convinced the Spirit was
of God, and gave thanks for the manifestation of it."- At another time
this prophet, having been directed by the mysterious influence within him
to proceed to the Court of Chancery, where a message was to be given him,
found, on proceeding there, with tragic expectations of prison and
penalty, that the impulse was withheld. Deeply disappointed, he came to
Irving in his discomfiture, and the pastor soothed the impatience of the
inspired speaker, and re-established his failing faith. In the midst of
another exciting scene, in which the exorcism of an evil spirit is
attempted without success, where Mrs. Caird and Baxter himself stand over
the supposed demoniac, adjuring the devil to come out of him, and another
prophetess of weaker frame has fainted in the excitement, Irving once more
appears exhorting:them to patience, suggesting, as our informant
significantly says, that " this kind goeth not forth but with prayer and
fasting." Such is his position in that strange atmosphere where hectic
expectation is always on tiptoe, and where the air throbs with spiritual
presence. No prophetic message comes from his lips:; but he has not
relinquished his authority, the sway of a spirit which is roused, but not
intoxicated, by the surrounding miracle. Amid the agitation and tumult he
stands, preserving all the tender humanity of which nothing could deprive
him, ready to cheer the ecstatic souls in their
Page 453
MYSTIC:
ATMOSPHERE. 453 intervals of depression, ready to moderate the absolutism
with which the more profoundly agitated struggle for results, leading
their prayers, listening with devout faith to their utterances,
understanding some part of them, though "others," as he himself says with
touching humility, "I have not yet attained to," and never ceasing to
mingle with "pastoral admonitions" the prophetic addresses. When an
unlucky neophyte stumbles into the sacred inclosure, believing himself
endowed with power to interpret the unknown tongues, in the midst of the
somewhat rough handling which he meets from the prophets themselves and
the immediate by-standers, he has nothing but kindness to report of
Irving, who overpowers him with awe by solemnly praying for him that the
gift he had imagined himself to have received might be perfected. The
position and scene is altogether wonderful; and through the often-varying
voices, through the cries and thrills of prophetic ecstasy, through the
frequent agitations which convulse that company, waiting the impulse which
comes and goes "as it listeth," no man being able to say when it will
enter or when go forth, the great preacher stands wistful-silent, never
able to shut out from his heart the sad world and the sadder desertions
outside, yet thanking God with pathetic joy for the revelations, of which
he believes all and understands something, within. Never was a more
affecting picture; and it is only in the remarkable disclosures of Mr.
Baxter that this strange inner circle rounds out of the darkness with its
"appalling utterances," its intruding demons, its breathless, absorbed
existence full of rapture and revelation. In the Church itself the
warnings and admonitions of the new prophets had borne more wholesome
fruit. A new body of evangelists sprang up among the spiritual men of the
congregation, who went preaching every where, sometimes even bringing upon
themselves the observation of the alarmed protectors of the public peace,
and "being called up before the magistrates on account of it," as Mr.
Baxter informs us-a harmless kind of persecution, which naturally the new
preachers, in the exuberance of early zeal, made the most of. Irving
himself, always so lavish in labor, was not behind in this quickening of
evangelical exertion. IHe describes himself as preaching "seldom less than
seven times a week;'" besides which, he had the morning meeting constantly
to attend, children to catechise, conferences to hold, and a close
perpetual background of private expositions, prophesyings, and prayers, in
which, without any metaphor, his entire life seems to
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INEVITABLE PROGRESS. have been occupied. Rent asunder as he was by the two
companies between which he stood ?the one, whom he would have died to win,
importuning him to relinquish his faith for their sake, and gradually
withdrawing from him, as he resisted, all the human supports upon which he
had most leaned; the other, with whom he had no choice but to cast his
lot, perplexing oft his noble intelligence, sometimes wounding his heart;
bound to him, indeed, by close links of love and fellow-feeling, but not
by ancient brotherhood-the bonds of long mutual labor, hope, and
sorrow-nor by the tender prejudices of nationality and education, it is
yet no' divided man who appears =amid all the agitation and tumult without
and within. Constant, steadfast, without a vacillation, he goes upon his
heroic way. No new honor has come to him; rather the contrary; for other
voices of higher authority than his echo within the walls once consecrated
to his voice, while he, the foremost to believe, bows his head and thanks
God, and bids his people listen to that utterance from heaven. But nothing
that he encounters, not even that hardest trial of all-the anxiety that
moves him when "faith" becomes "hard," when spiritual accusations begin to
rise, and evil influences are suspected to mingle with the inspiration of
God-can disturb the unity of his being or make him waver. He has prayed,
and God has answered; he has tried the spirits, and with solemn
acclamations they have answered the test, and owned the Lord; and now let
all suffering, all opposition, all agony come. If his very prophets fail
him, his faith can not fail him. And thus he goes forward, feeling to the
depths of his heart all the remonstrances and appeals addressed to him,
yet smiling in sad constancy upon those importunate voices, and hearing as
if he heard them not. Notwithstanding, however, the reluctant affection of
the managers of the Church, affairs made inevitable progress. Though it is
perfectly true, on one side, that there were no direct laws of the Church
of Scotland against the exercise of an entirely unexpected endowment for
which no provision had been made, and equally certain that to every man
who believed these gifts genuine, no sin could be more heinous than a
willful suppression of them, yet it was still more apparent, on the other
side, that nothing could be more unlike the reserved and austere worship
of the Scotch Church, so carefully. abstracted from every thing that could
excite imagination or passion, than the new and startling intervention of
voices, unauthorized by any ecclesiastical rule, which introduced
Page 455
THE
TRUSTEES TAKE COUNSEL'S OPINION. 455 the whole round of human excitement
into those calm Presbyterian Sabbath-days, stirring into utter antagonism,
impatience, and opposition the former leaders of the community, who found
themselves thus defied and thwarted on their own ground. For their
minister's convictions they had the utmost tenderness and reverence, but
they would indeed have been more than men could they have seen with equal
forbearance the new influence, twenty timnes more engrossing and exacting
than theirs, which had become absolute with him, and through him exercised
unbounded sway in all their public religious services. Feelings less
tender and Christian came in. Men who little more than a year before had
pledged their honor to Irving's support against the petty persecution of
the Presbytery, and maintained him in his withdrawal from its
jurisdiction, now began to bethink themselves of the capabilities of that
very Presbytery against which they had protested. That court only could,
with any ecclesiastical consistency, arbitrate between them and their
minister; and at length they seem to have reached the pitch of indignation
and impatience necessary to induce them to take the humiliating step of
asking the intervention of the authority which they had renounced against
the man for whose sake, a little while before, they had thrown off
their.allegiance. This painful conclusion was, however, reached by slow
degrees. The first step toward it was taken in the beginning of the year,
when-still with a forlorn and indeed most hopeless hope of breaking
Irving's resolution, if they were clearly demonstrated to have the law on
their side-they submitted the whole facts of the case to Sir Edward Sugden,
and obtained that eminent lawyer's opinion in their favor. This decision
gave an authoritative answer to the assumption that the direction of the
order of worship in Regent Square Church was entirely in the hands of the
minister, which Irving seems to have been advised to set up in answer to
their remonstrances. Armed with this document, a deputation of the
trustees went to Irving, asking his final determination. "He received them
cordially," writes Mr. Hamilton; "expressed himself much gratified with
the kind manner in which they had always treated him, and promised to give
them his answer in a few days." A Sunday intervened before this answer was
given; and on.that day, after each service in the church, Irving
forestalled the formal intimation, which, indeed, so thoroughly were his
sentiments known, was nothing more than a form, by a public statement from
the pulpit, which Mr. Hamilton, follow
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IRVING'S ADVICE TO HIS PEOPLE. ing the course of events in anxious and
minute detail, reports to Kirkcaldy. "I have something of great importance
to say to you," said the preacher, according to his brother-in-law's
report: "I do not know whether I may ever look this congregation again in
the face in this place, and whether the doors of the church will not be
shut against me during this week. If it be so, it will be simply because I
have refused to allow the voice of the Spirit of God to be silenced in
this church. No man has any thing to say against me. I have offended no
ordinance of God or man, and I have broken no statute of man. No one has
found any fault with me at all except in the matter of my God-nay, on the
contrary, every one has pronouncedc me even more abundant in my labors and
more diligent in my duties of late, and also that my preaching has been
more simple and edifying than formerly. The Church has been enlarged; many
souls have been converted by the voice of the Spirit; the Church has
fallen off in nothing; and altogether the work of the Lord has been
proceeding. But because I am firm in my honor of God and reverence for His
ordinances we are come to this. Now I must provide for my flock. What are
you to do? You must not come here. Here the Spirit of God has been cast
out, and none can prosper who come here to worship. Go not to any church
where they look shyly on the work of the Spirit. We must'not forsake the
assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.' This, then, I
advise for the present, that each householder who is a member of this
flock do gather around him those in his neighborhood who are not
householders, and joining to them the poor, do exhort them and expound to
them the Word of the Lord..... And if he has no gifts, there are plenty of
young men in this Church who are gifted, and who are willing to be so
employed, and I myself am willing to be helpful in all ways in this work.
All the other meetings of the Church will be held in my house. Let no one
be troubled for me; I am not troubled. -When I came to London, I said,'Let
me have the liberty to preach the Gospel without let or hinderance, and I
am ready to come without any bond or money transaction; and if there is
any difficulty, let me come and be among you from house to house.' To
these kind friends I am beholden. They have ever provided me with what was
needful; but I have never counted my house my own, nor my money my own;
they have been for the brethren. And now I am ready to go forth and leave
them, if the Lord's will be so. If we should be cast out for the truth,
let us rejoice; yea, let us exceedingly rejoice." Such was the sorrowful
elder's account of this address, which comes through his memory evidently
dimmed out of its natural eloquence, but touching in the perfect
truthfulness of its appeal to the recollection at once of the hearers and
of the speaker himself. Many of those who heard Irving speak these words
could prove from their own remembrance the lofty disinterestedness with
which he had begun his career, and none more than the men who
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IRVING'S
ANSWER TO THE TRUSTEES. 457 now felt it necessary to take from him the
house and income which, as he says, " he never counted his own." What
prospect of compulsory silence to himself or dispersion to his flock had
been in his mind, prompting that singular piece of advice to "every
householder," it is impossible to tell. Perhaps, when he spread the
lawyer's judgment before the Lord, dark indications of future trouble bad
trembled on the prophetic lips, and nothing which he could interpret as a
clear indication of the Divine will had made light in the darkness of the
future. But, however that mightbe, his course was decided. If even he had
to be silent from that work of preaching which had at all times been his
chosen occupation, he who would have come to London ten years before
without "bond or money transaction," only to have "the liberty of
preaching the Gospel," was now ready to relinquish not only all his
living, but that dearer privilege, the very power of preaching, if so it
must be, rather than put any limit upon the utterances which he believed
divine. The next day, after this intimation to the people, he gave the
formal answer which had been demanded from him to the trustees of the
church: " 13 Judd Place, East, 28th February, 1832. "MY DEAR BRETHREN,-I
have read over the opinion of Sir Edward Sugden which you were so kind as
to submit to me, and I have taken a full week to consider of it. The
principle on which I have acted is to preserve the integrity of my
ministerial character unimpaired, and to fulfill my office according to
the Word of God. If the trust-deed do fetter me therein, I knew it not
when the trust-deed was drawn, and am sure that it never was intended in
the drawing of it; for certainly I would not, to possess all the churches
of this land, bind myself one iota from obeying the great Head and Bishop
of the Church. But if it be so that you, the trustees, must act to prevent
me and my flock from assembling to worship God, according to the Word of
God, in the house committed into your trust, we will look unto our God for
preservation and safe keeping! Farewell! may the Lord have you in His holy
keeping! "Your faithful and affectionate friend, EDWD. IRVING." After this
he was vexed with no more of those affectionate and importunate arguments
which had tried his tender heart for months before. The division was now
accepted as final; compromise was no longer possible: and nothing remained
but to prove his divergence from the rules of Presbyterian worship, and to
close the church doors upon him. "The trustees," said Sir Edward Sugden, "
ought immediately to proceed to remove Mr. Irving from his pastoral
charge, by making complaint to the Lon
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458 THE
FOREGONE CONCLUSION OF THE PRESBYTERY. don Presbytery in the manner
pointed out by the deed." It was now understood by both parties that this
was the only course to be adopted; and the minister who had withdrawn from
the censures of that Presbytery a year before, disowning its jurisdiction,
and the men* who had rallied round him.then, and solemnly declared their
entire approval at once of that act and of the sentiments which had roused
the Presbytery into censure, had now to approach that obscure tribunal to
have the matter between them decided; the one to stand at the unfriendly
bar, the others to prosecute their charge against him. Considering all
that had passed before, Irving had not the shadow of a chance before the
ecclesiastical court which had already delivered judgment on him, and the
authority of which he had cast off,almost haughtily. It was a foregone
conclusion.to which that little group of ministers were asked to come over
again. If such a wonder had happened as that the case of the trustees had
broken down, the Presbytery itself, now that he had been dragged back
within its grasp, had matter enough on which to condemn him. If any thing
could have embittered the matter in dispute, it would have been the
selection of these judges. When, in the earlier stages of the argument, it
was proposed to appeal to the arbitration of the Presbytery, Irving "
begged" the elders, as Mr. Hamilton tells us, not to take this step. But
things had progressed far in these few months. Now he said nothing on the
subject, and was apparently indifferent as to who might judge him. The
matter had resolved itself, indeed, into mere question and answer; any
other trial, however exciting it might be at the moment, was but a
necessary form. The simple fact was, that he had been asked to silence
those strange voices which the trustees proclaimed to be mere outcries of
human delusion and excitement, but which he held to be so many utterances
of the voice of God, and had answered No; would answer No, howsoever the
question might be asked him; opposing to every argument of reason, to
every inducement of interest, to every taunt of folly, a steadfast front
of faith unbroken. The trial before the Presbytery, considering the ground
taken by the trustees, and the hopelessness of any real and grave inquiry
into the merits of the question, was little more than a form. But,
notwithstanding that, bitterness had to be encountered; and, whenever it
became inevitable, Irving awaited it calmly, making no far* The trustees
and Kirk session were not identical, but the most influential of Irt
ving's opponents were members of both.
Page 459
THE LIFE
OF TIIE ACCUSED. 459 ther appeal against the cruelty and humiliation. If
he had carried matters with a high hand once, when, secure of support and
rich in friends, he shook off the dust from his feet in testimony against
the arbitrary condemnation of his former brethren, the reverse that befell
him now, when forced to return and plead his cause before them, would have
been mortification enough to any ordinary man. He accepted it, however,
with lofty composure, and without a complaint, throwing no obstacles in
the way of those for whose relief.and satisfaction this trial was to be
inflicted on him. It was not till the 22d of March that the Presbytery
received the complaint of the trustees. An entire month consequently
elapsed between the solemn intimation made by Irving to his people that
their church would probably be closed upon them and the commencement of
the proceedings. This month passed in the ordinary labors-the
extraordinary devotions common to his life. Every wintry morning dawned
upon the servant of God amid prayers and prophesyings, while he stood, the
first to hear and to worship amid the early company, never intermitting,
notwithstanding his faith, the pastor's anxious care that admonition
should be mingled with revelation, and that the spirits should prove
themselves to be of God, by acknowledging the name that is above all
names; every laborious evening fell filled up till its latest moments with
his Master's business. Day by day he preached, day by day sent forth other
men into the streets and highways to preach-if not like him, yet with
hearts touched by the same fire; over those perpetual evangelist
proclamations without, and that wonderful world of expectation within, in
which at any moment God's audible voice might thrill the worshipers, the
days passed one by one, mingling the din of busy London, the incidents of
common life, the domestic voices and tender tones of children, with the
highest strain of human toil and climax of human emotion. Such a cadence
and rhythmical overflow of life few men have ever attained. The highest
dreams of imagination, trembling among things incomprehensible, could
realize nothing more awful, nothing so certain to take entire possession
of the fascinated soul as those utterances of the Spirit if they were
trueand they were true to Irving's miraculous heart; while, at the same
time, no laboring man could imagine a more ceaseless round of toil than
that by which he kept the mighty equilibrium of his soul, and
counterpoised with generous work the excitement and
Page 460
460
"REPROACH HATH BROKEN MY HEART." agitation which might otherwise have
overwhelmed him. Between those two consuming yet compensating spheres, the
man himself, not yet exhausted, stands in a pale glow of suffering and
injured love, wounded in the house of his friends, with a hundred arrows
in the heart which knows no defense against the assault of unkind words
and averted looks. He makes no outcry of his own suffering. There, where
he stands, the dearest,.voices murmur at him with taunts of cruel wisdom
or censures of indignant virtue. They say he seeks notoriety, courts the
wild suffrage of popular applause; they cast at him common nicknames of
enthusiasm, fanaticism, delusion; they call him arrogant, presumptuous,
vain-even, with more vulgar tongues, religious trickster and cheat. In the
very fullness of that lofty and prodigal existence, the blow strikes to
the fountains of life. A friend had once said to him that Christians ought
to rejoice when the outside world despised and contemned the Church. "Ah!
no," answered with a sigh this soul experienced in such trials; " reproach
hath broken my heart 1" These words breathe out of his uncomplaining lips
at this crisis with ineffable sadness, sometimes breaking forth in
pathetic outbursts of that grief which, in its passion and vehemence,
sounds almost like the lofty wrath of the old prophets, and giving
sometimes a momentary thrill of discord to his undiminished eloquence.
Already he had entered deep into the pangs of martyrdom. The following
letter will show how even the bosom of domestic affection was ruffled by
these assaults. It is addressed to Dr. Martin, who, watching the progress
of affairs from a distance, had not hesitated to make emphatic and
repeated protests against what appeared to him delusion: "London, 7th
March, 1832. "MY DEAR FATHERn-IN-LAW,-Your letters concerning the work of
the Holy Ghost in my church, and my conduct in respect thereto, do trouble
and grieve me very much, because of your rashness in coming to a
conclusion on so awful a question without the materials for a judgment,
and because of the unqualified manner in which both you and Samuel and all
condemn me, without any adequate information, and, as seems to me, without
due tenderness and love. If this be the work of the Holy Ghost, the voice
of Jesus in His Church, who am I that I should interdict or prevent it any
way? I believe it is so, and that is the only reason iwhy I have acted as
I have done, and will continue so to do until the end..... I am
responsible to the great Head of the Church in virtue of being the angel
of the Church; the elders and deacons have an authority derived from and
delegated to them by me, but not to the dividing or deprivation of
Page 461
IRVING
COMPLAINS TO DR. MARTIN. 461 mine. The grounds of this doctrine I laid out
before this came to pass in my Lectures on the Apocalypse, and I have
acted thereafter according to previous conviction, and as a course of
conduct, and not from the particular case, as you and Samuel unkindly and
unjustly suppose. I never made any agreement, at any time, to suppress the
voice of the Spirit in the public assemblies of the Church, and never will
do. For one week, while I thought the people were turbulently set against
it, I wavered about its proceeding in the evening till I saw my way
clearly. "Moreover, dear father, know and be assured that the Lord
prospers my ministry and my flock more abundantly than ever; that more
souls than ever hear the Word at my mouth, and more souls are converted
unto the Lord Jesus;.... and for myself, and my wife and children, fear
nothing, because we serve the Lord, and suffer for righteousness' sake.
What you misname my imagination is my spirit, which surely you would wish
to see triumphant over the understanding of the natural mind.... Oh, my
dear sir, look to your own dead, and heretical, and all but apostate
Church at home, and see what repentance and humiliation can be offered for
it. Rejoice that there is one Church in this land whlere the voice of the
Holy Ghost, speaking in the members, is heard. Give thanks, and judge no
rash judgments; for, however they be well meant, they are: far, far from
the truth, and add much to the burden which I have already to sustain....
Farewell! God keep you faithful in such times! "Your affectionate and
dutiful son, EDwD. IRvING." Over this letter wise heads were doubtless
shaken and sorrowing tears shed in the Kirkcaldy manse, where the family,
in their mutual letters, full of Edward, confide to each other a certain
distressed and excited impatience of his weakness, mingled with
involuntary outbreaks of love and praise, which, uttered evidently to
relieve their own hearts, give an affecting picture of the wonderful hold
which this brother, straying daily farther out of their comprehension and
sympathy, had of their hearts. With strange calmness, after these
utterances of emotion, yet giving example of the common feeling, Mr.
Hamilton's sensible, regretful voice interposes once more in the
narrative;, telling over again, with the sigh of impatient wonder natural
to a man so sagacious and unexcitable, those same prophecies and
revelations given by Mr. Baxter, which Irving had reported in full
conviction of their importance. "I merely mention the above to give you
some idea of the nature of the manifestations which have been made in the
Church," he writes. "There have been others, however, of a much more
comforting tendency. I believe that a large proportion of the present
congregation agree with Edward in the belief of the reality of those
manifestations, and that they will fol
Page 462
462
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION INVOLVED. low him wherever he may remove to; and I
must say that they are in general very pious people, zealous for God, and
most exemplary in the discharge of their religious duties. As for Edward'
he continues unwearied and unceasing in his labors; indeed, it is a marvel
to me how he is able to bear up under them all. I never knew any man so
devoted to the service of his Master, or more zealous in the performance
of what he conceives to be his duty." Such being the condition of affairs,
the question came before the London Presbytery to its final trial. "Is
there any thing in the constitution of the Church which forbids the
exercise of the prophetic gift, supposing it to be real?" asks Mr.
Hamilton, with sudden acuteness, in the letter above quoted. Such a
question would indeed seem to be the first and most urgent, seeing that
the emergency was distinctly unexpected and unprovided for by the original
legislators of the Church of Scotland. But, so far as I am aware, nobody
attempted to give an answer to this fundamental inquiry. In the trial
which followed, it does not seem ever to have been taken into
consideration at all. The matter was contracted and debased, at the very
outset, to a superficial inquiry into facts, the complaint of the trustees
being entirely confined to the assertion that unauthorized persons,
"neither ministers nor licentiates of the Church of Scotland," and in some
cases " neither members nor seat-holders" of the individual congregation,
had been permitted to " interrupt the public services of the Church." The
Presbytery, of course, did not confine themselves to the proving of this
simple issue; but, amid all the inquisitions that followed, no one seems
to have been sensible that the first question to be asked in the matter
was that put by Mr. Hamilton, or that, supposing the strange possibility
of Irving's belief proving true, it was necessary to find out whether God
Himself might not be an unauthorized speaker in His too well-defended
Church. This hypothesis the little ecclesiastical court did not take into
consideration for a moment. They put it aside arbitrarily, as it is always
so easy to do, and, indeed, never seem to have thought, or to have had
suggested to them, that this profounder general question lay under the
special case which they had immediately in hands, and that no radical
settlement could be made of the individual matter without some attempt, at
least, to establish the general principle. Before, however, these final
proceedings were commenced, Ir
Page 463
LAST
REMONSTRANCE. 463 ving addressed yet another letter to his opponents. It
is without date, but was evidently intended to reach them on the occasion
of a conclusive meeting, of which he had been informed; and, while less
familiar and more solemn than his former letters, still overflows with
personal affection. " MEN'AND BRETHREN, ?A a man and the head of a family,
bound to provide for himself and those of his own house, I am enabled
of.God to be perfectly indifferent to the issue of your deliberations this
night, though it should go to deprive me of all my income, and cast
me-after ten years of hard service, upon the wide world, with my. wife and
my children-forth from a house which was built almost entirely upon the
credit of my name, and primarily for my life enjoyment, where also the
ashes of my children repose. ~' As a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath been honored of Him to bring forth from obscurity a whole! system
of precious truth, and especially to proclaim to this land the glad and
glorious tidings of His speedy coming, and strengthened of Him to stand
for the great bulwarks of the faith, ofttimes almost single and alone, I
am still indifferent to the issue of this night's deliberations, which can
bring little addition to the burdens of one groaning under the reproach of
ten thousand tongues, in ten thousand ways put forth against his good and
honorable name. For I am well assured that my God whom I serve, and for
whom I suffer reproach, will support and richly reward me, even though ye
also should turn against me, whom the Lord set to be a defense and
protection round about me. As the pastor of a flock, consisting of several
hundreds of precious souls, and the minister of the Word unto thousands
weekly, nay, daily congregating into our beautiful house, though it hath
cost me many a pang, I am also entirely resigned to His will, and can cast
them all upon His rich and bountiful providence, who is the good Shepherd
of the sheep, and doth carry the lambs in His bosom, and gently lead those
that are great with young. On no account, therefore, be ye assured,
personal to myself as a man, as a minister of Christ, or as a pastor of
His people, do I intrude myself upon your meeting this night with this
communication; but for your sakes I wait, even for yours, who are, every
one of you, dear. to my heart. Bear with me, then, the more patiently,
seeing it is for your sakes I take up my pen to write. "I do you solemnly
to wit, men and brethren, before Almighty God, the heart-searcher, that
whosoever lifteth a finger against the work which: is proceeding in the
Church of Christ under my pastoral care:is rising up against the Holy
GGhost; and I warn him, even with tears, to beware and stand back, for
he.will assuredly bring upon himself the wrath' and indignation of the God
of heaven and earth if he dare.to go,forward.: Many months: of most
painstaking and searching;observation, the- most-varied proofs of every
kind, taken with' all the skill and circumspection which the Lord hath
bestowed upon me; the substance of the doctrine, the character of the
Spirit, and the form and circumstances of the utterances tried by the Holy
Page 464
464 NOT
THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT. Scriptures, and whatever remains most venerable in
the traditions of the Church; the present power and penetration of the
Word spoken over the souls of the most holy persons, with the abiding
effects of edification upon hundreds who have come under my own personal
knowledge; the nature of the opposition which, from a hundred quarters,
most of them entirely indifferent, infidel, and atheistical, hath arisen
against it, together with the effects which the opposition hath had upon
the minds of honest and good persons who have stumbled at it; their haste
and headiness; their unrest and trouble of mind; the attempt of Satan, by
mimicry of the work, and thrusting in upon it of seduction and
devil-possessed persons to mar it, and the jealous holiness with which God
hath detected all these attempts, and watched over His own work to keep it
from intermixture and pollution; and, above all, the testimony of the Holy
Ghost in my own conscience, as a man serving God with my house; the
discernment of the same Holy Ghost in me as a minister over His truth and
watchman over His people-all these, and many other things, which I am not
careful to set out in order or at large, seeing the time for argument is
gone by, and the time for delivering a man's soul is come, do leave not a
shadow of doubt on my mind that the work which hath begun under the roof
of our sanctuary, and which many of you are taking steps to prevent from
proceeding there, is the WORK of God-is verily the MIGHITY WORK of God,
the most sacred work of the HIoly Ghost; which to blaspheme is to
blaspheme the Holy Ghost; which to act against is to act against the Holy
Ghost. This is the guilt of the action you are proceeding in; whether
there be sufficient cause for bringing dclown such a load upon your heads,
dearly-beloved brethren, judge ye. For my part, I would rather, were I a
trustee, lose all my property ten times told than move a finger in
hinderance of this great work of God, which God calleth on you to further
by all means in your power, and to abide the consequences of a
prosecution, yea, all consequences between life and death, rather than
hinder. Oh,' what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose
his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' "You
have determined to lodge a complaint against me to the London Presbytery
for no immorality of conduct, for no neglect of duty, for no breach of
good faith, for no change of ordinance proper to the Church of Scotland,
for no departure from the constitution of the Church of Scotland, for no
cause, in point of fact, which was or could have been contemplated in the
formation of the trust-deed, but simply and solely because God, in His
great love and mercy, hath restored the gifts of Providence to the Church
under my care, and I, the responsible minister under Christ, being
convinced thereof, have taken it upon me to order it according to the mind
and will of Christ, the only Head and Potentate of His Church, as the same
is expressed in the Holy Scriptures. I ask ye before God, and as ye shall
answer at the great day, if the trust-deed could have been intended to
prevent the spiritual gifts from ever being exercised within the building,
or from being ordered according to the Word of God? May I go farther, and
ask whether the constitution of the Church of Scotland, or of any church,
could be intended to keep the voice of Jesus
Page 465
IMPASSIONED APPEAL. 465 from being heard, as heretofore it was wont to be,
within the assemblies of His people? Oh, beloved brethren, how can you
find it in your hearts to complain against one who hath been so faithfil
among you to declare the whole counsel of God, and to do every thing by
night and by day for the good of the flock and of all men, merely because
he hath been faithful to his Lord, as well as to the people of the Lord,
and would not by a mountain of opposition be daunted from acknowledging
the work and walking by the counsel of his God? I beseech you to search
your hearts, and examine how much of this complaint ariseth from a desire
to do your duty as trustees, how much from dislike and opposition to the
work, from the influence of the popular stream, and the fear of the
popular odium, from your own pride of heart and unwillingness to examine
any thing new, from the love of being at ease in Zion, and from other evil
causes over which I have a constant jealousy in myself and in my flock,
whom I should love better than myself. I do not judge any one in this
matter; but I would be blind indeed if I did not discern the working of
these and the like motives of the flesh in many of you, and I would be
unfaithful if I did not mention them. I fear lest I may have been
unfaithful in time past; if so, God forgive me, and do you forgive me, and
take this as the last and complete expression of my love to all of you.
Oh, my brethren, take time and think what tenant may be expected to come
and take up his abode in that house from which the Holy Ghost hath been
cast forth! It will never prosper or come to any good until it hath been
cleansed from this abomination by sore and sorrowful repentance. How can
you make a fashion of calling it a house of praise or prayer any longer,
after having banished forth of it the voice of Jesus lifted up in the
midst of the Church of His saints, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost?
Surely disappointment and defeat will rest upon it forever. God will not
bless it; the servants of God will flee away from it; it will stand a
monument of folly and infatuation. Nay, so much hath the Lord made me to
perceive the iniquity of this thing, that I believe it will bring down
judgment upon all who take part in it, upon their houses, upon the city
itself in which the National Scotch Church hath been a lamp, yea, and a
light unto the whole land, and to the distant parts of the earth. Oh, my
brethren, retrace your steps; leave this work in the hands of the Lord.
Come forward and confess your sin in having thought or spoken evil against
it. Come to the help of God against the mighty. I beseech you to hear my
words. They have been written with prayer and fasting; and when I read
them over about an hour ago in the hearing of one gifted with the Spirit,
that the Lord, if He saw good, might express His mind, the consequences
which he denounced upon the doing of this act were frightful to hear. I
had little thought of mentioning this to any one, but it seemeth to be not
right to hide it in my own breast. If you desire, dear brethren, any
personal communication with me upon this awful subject, I beseech you to
sendE for me, and I will be at your call; for I could stand to be tortured
from head to foot rather than any one of you should go forward in such an
undertaking as to prevent the voice of God from being heard: in any house
over which you have any jurisdiction. Go
Page 466
466 THE
TRUSTEES' COMPLAINT. c" May the Lord preserve you from all evil, and lead
you in the way of His own blessed will! Amen and Amen! "Your faithful and
loving pastor and friend, "EDWD. IRVING." This wonderful letter proves
over again, if more proof were needed, how impossible it was for Irving to
open his mouth without unfolding his very heart and soul. The trustees of
the church received this impassioned appeal, knowing better than any other
men how true were those assertions of his own purity and faithfulness to
which Irving was driven; but, with such an address in their hands, went
forward calmly to the Presbytery and presented the complaint, which he
marvels, with grieved surprise and wounded affection, how they could "find
it in their heart" to prefer against him. This complaint, which begins by
setting forth the character of the trust-deed, and the rigid particularity
with which it had bound the Regent Square Church to the worship of the
Church of Scotland, finally settles into five charges against the
minister. Perhaps it was in tenderness for him that every hint of
divergence in doctrine, or even of extravagance in belief, was kept back
from this strange indictment; but it is impossible to read, without
wonder, those charges upon which the existence of a congregation, and the
position of a man so notable and honored, now depended. They are as
follows: "First. That the Rev. Edward Irving has suffered and permitted,
and still allows, the public services of the Church in the worship of God,
on the Sabbath and other days, to be interrupted by persons not being
either ministers or licentiates of the Church of Scotland. "Second. That
the said Rev. Edward Irving has suffered and permitted, and still allows,
the public services of the said church, in the worship of God, to be
interrupted by persons not being either members or seat-holders of the
said church. " Third. That the said Rev. E. Irving has suffered and
permitted,'and also publicly encourages, females to speak in the same
church, and to interrupt and disturb the public worship of God in the
church on Sabbath and other days. " Fourth. That the said Rev. E. Irving
hath suffered and permitted, and also publicly encourages, other
individuals, members of the said Church, to interrupt and disturb the
public worship of God in the church on Sabbath and other days. "_Fifth.
That the said Rev. E. Irving, for the purpose of encouraging and exciting
the said interruptions, has appointed times when a suspension of the usual
worship in the said church takes place, for said persons to exercise the
supposed gifts with which they profess to be endowed."
Page 467
MEETING
OF THE PRESBYTERY. 467 After all the agitation and excitement, after the
sorrowful struggle which had just come to an end, and all the depths of
feeling and suffering involved, this bald statement comes with all the
effect of an anti-climax upon the interested spectator. Was this, then,
all? these mere matters of fact-this breach of common regulation and
decorum? Was this important enough to call for all the formal
paraphernalia of law-the reverend bench of judgesthe witnesses and
examinations-the pleas of accuser and defender? The court, we may be sure,
had no mind to confine itself to the mere proof of charges so trifling in
themselves. A month after the presentation of this indictment the
Presbytery assembled for "the hearing of parties." There were present six
ministers and three elders, and the place of meeting was the old Scotch
Church in London Wall. With that odd simulation of legal forms, and
affectation.of scrupulous rule and precedent, joined to all the
irregularities of a household examination, which characterize a
Presbyterian Church Court in a country where Presbyterianism has no
acknowledged authority, and where the unrecognized tribunal is without'
professional guidance, the-judges took their places, and the process
began. A Mr. Mann, one of the trustees, appeared for the complainers;
Irving stood by himself'on his defense - Mr. Cardale, a solicitor,
accompanying him, and making'what hopeless attempts he could, now and
then, to recall the precautions of a court of justice to the recollection
of the assembly. The witnesses called by the complainers were three of
Irving's closest supporters; one, a 4" gifted person," who had himself
taken a very decided part in the "interruptions" which he was called to
prove. Thus, with wonderful and apparently causeless cruelty, in very
strange contrast to the consideration they had hitherto shown him, his
opponents contrived his downfall by the hands of those who not only
believed with him, but one of whom had been an actual instrument of his
peril. On this same eventful April morning, before coming with those three
witnesses, whom a common faith made his natural defenders, but whom the
selection of his adversaries had chosen to substantiate their case against
him, to the court where he was to take his place at the bar, a still more
cruel and utterly unexpected blow fell upon Irving. He who, of all the
prophetic speakers, had spoken with most boldness and claimed the highest
authority; he who, "in the power," had expounded the most mysterious
prophecies of the Apocalypse, and pronounced the very limit of
Page 468
468
RECANTATION OF BAXTER. time, the three years and a half which were to
elapse before the witnesses were received up to heaven; he whose
utterances only a month or two before, Irving, in all the assurance of
utter trust, had sent to his friends, that they too might be edified and
triumph in the light which God was giving to his Church, Robert Baxter,
came suddenly up from Yorkshire to intimate the total downfall of his own
pretensions, and to disown the inspiration of which so short a time before
he had convinced the troubled pastor, who for that once found it "'hard"
to believe. "I reached him on the morning of his appearance before the
Presbytery of London," writes this penitent, apparently as impetuous and
absolute in his renunciation as in his former claims. " Calling him and
Mr. J. Cardale apart, I told them my conviction that we had all been
speaking by a lying spirit, and not by the Spirit of God." A most
startling and grievous preface to the defense which was that day to be
made. The little group went doubtless with troubled souls to that
encounter, knowing well how strong a point this would be for their
opponents, and themselves dismayed and brought to a sudden stand-still by
a desertion so unlooked for. Had Irving's heart been discourageable, or
his faith less than a matter of life and death, such a blow, falling at
such a time, might well have disabled him altogether. There is no trace
that it had any effect upon him on that important day. When they had
reached London Wall, and the Moderator of the Presbytery was opening the
sitting with prayer, a message suddenly burst, with echoing preface of the
" tongue," from one of the three witnesses. Perhaps it comforted that
heart torn with many sorrows, which, when needing so emphatically all its
strength, had been subject to so overwhelming a. discouragement. At all
events, it was with dignity and steadfastness unbroken that Irving met the
harassing and irritating process which now opened. As an example of the
manner in which this so-called trial was conducted, I quote a passage here
and there from the report: "The first witness called was Mr. Mackenzie.* "
"Mir. JMann (the spokesman of the complainers). You are an elder of the
National Scotch Church? "I am. A jurat proof of oath before a Master in
Chancery was here put in. "You were an elder of the Church prior to
October, 1831? Yes, I was. * This gentleman was the only elder who
entirely sympathized with Irving, and went with him when shut out from
Regent Square.
Page 469
BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL. 469' Will you, to save the time of the Presbytery,
detail some of those exhibitions which you witnessed in the Scotch Church
betwixt November and March last? " Moderator. That is too leading a
question. Y ou may ask if he has witnessed any thing in the church which
is a breach of order prior to that date. "3kMr. Mann. I admit this is not
right, but I ask him the detail of the proceedings, and the persons
concerned in them. If he declines, I will put the question seriatim. To
the witness: Detail the occurrences different from ordinary worship prior
to that time, if any? There have certainly occurrences taken place in the
church since the period stated which had not taken place in the church
before. "State what they are? Certain persons have spoken who bad never
spoken in the church before." A detailed account of the persons who had
thus spoken was then drawn from the witness, along with the fact that
interruptions of the worship, consisting of objections to points of
doctrine, made by strangers, had occurred previous to October, 1831, and
been promptly put down. The examination then proceeded. "C Moderator. Do
any members of the court wish to put questions to the witness? "J Mr.
Mlaclean. Pray, Moderator, will you allow me to ask whether the witness
considers, from what he had previously heard there, that there were new
doctrines taught? "ASolicitor. I object to the question: this is not an
examination into Mr. Irving's doctrines. " Mioderator. It is a valid
objection.'Mr. Miller questioned this opinion, and pressed the question.
Mr. Maclean waived it. " Mioderator. I wish to put one other question. You
have alluded to interruptions that have taken place as being objections to
the doctrines taught at the time. Now you are a party on oath; has there
ever been declared in that church a connection between that doctrine and
the manifestations in question.? I do not perceive the connection of that
question with the previous question. It was a stranger that objected to
the doctrine. " Moderator. Have you heard the manifestations adduced as a
support to that doctrine? I do not recollect what the doctrine was that
was objected to, so I can not answer your question, sir." After much more
of the same loose and confused interrogations, Irving, doubtless as
informal as his judges, himself took the witness in hand, and by means of
broadly suggestive questions established their concurrence of belief that
the interruptions complained of were utterances not "made by the persons
themselves," but " in the strength and by the power of the Holy Ghost." He
then proceeded to ask, "So far as you have been. able to search,
Page 470
470
EXAMINATION.-THE PROPHET TAPLIN. does it agree with the things written in
the Scripture or not?" when immediately a tumult of opposition arose. The
Moderator interfered at once to declare the question irregular, as no
doubt, under any pretense of adherence to legal forms, it was. The
objection of the Presbyterial president, however, was not that the
witness's opinion was asked where only his evidence as to matters of fact
was admissible, but that the matter in dispute was not whether these
"interruptions" were according to Scripture, but whether they were in
accordance with the standards of the Church. A hot but brief discussion
followed, in which, with a courage for which they certainly deserve
credit, every clerical member of the court declared, individually, in
opposition to Irving's protest, that "the reverend defender was quite out
of order in appealing to the Scriptures," and that "the question was not
the Word of God, but the trust-deed and the doctrines of the Church- of
Scotland." This matter being settled, the business proceeded, and the
second witness, Mr. Taplin, one of the " gifted persons," who had already
given practical evidence on the subject by the utterance with which he had
interrupted the opening prayer, was called. After eliciting from this
witness the fact of his own frequent exercise of the prophetic gift, and
that he had been once reproved by "a sister" for speaking by " a spirit of
error," the following questions were put: "L MJi Mann. When you have thus
spoken, has it been during the public service of the Church on Sunday? I
do not remember ever speaking but once on the Sunday. "Was that during the
service? It was at the close of Mr. Irving's sermon." The Moderator now
interposed with what seems, considering the transparent and candid
character of the accused, an inconceivable insinuation. " Now, sir," said
this Christian judge, " was it not by a previous arrangement with Mr.
Irving that you then spoke?" The amazed witness answered with natural
indignation, "Do you think, sir, we stand before you knaves? I should have
abhorred the idea of it. I could not have entered into such an arrangement
had Mr. Irving been willing; but I believe his heart is too pure to have
been a party to such a proceeding." " Was there not an arrangement that
the speaking should not take place till after the sermon? I understand
you. to ask if it was by concert or private arrangement previously entered
into, whereas the arrangement was made some time afterward.
Page 471
A
DISTINCTION OF NAMES. 471 "By this answer now given, the witness
recognizes an arrangement to have been afterward entered into? The
arrangement was not made with the gifted persons; it was Mr. Irving's own
order; and in making it he never consulted with us; and when I heard of it
afterward, I said in my heart, Will he set bounds to the Spirit? Will the
Spirit of the Lord submit to speak when he pleaseth? "lifMr. Irving. For
the honor of a Christian minister, I must say one word here. I made an
order that the speaking should be permitted after the service, because I
did not wish to agitate the feelings of the congregation; I was desirous
of feeling my way tenderly toward them, and yet not to prevent the Spirit
speaking at other times. "L Moderator. Did you hear any conversation any
where respecting the revival of these gifts before you exercised them? I
heard Mr. Irving, I believe, first teach that he saw no reason why the
gifts of the Spirit should have been withdrawn from the Church; and I was
led by that, and hearing of their revival in Scotland, to read the
Scriptures for myself on the subject; and I found in the last chapter of
Mark, the Lord had promised'that signs should follow them that believe;'
and I thought, What is a Church, or the authority of a Church, if it set
aside the plain promise of Scripture?" To this explanation the Moderator
replies significantly, "Sir, you have answered quite enough," and proceeds
to pursue the question, which it will be apparent has no connection
whatever with the matter-of-fact complaint in proof of which the witness
was examined, into farther metaphysical depths. " Do you consider that all
persons not having these manifestations in themselves have not the seal of
faith? I can not answer that question. "'I ask you in the sight of God,
upon your oath. f" Mr. Irving. It is a deep theological question, which I
could not answer myself; he means not that he will not answer it, but that
he is not competent to answer it. "lMr. Taplin. I read that these signs
shall follow them that believe; and although I have not a positive
conviction, I am inclined to believe that persons may have the seal of
faith who have not received these gifts. "l Moderator. Proceeding on this
answer, that persons may have the seal of faith without these
extraordinary gifts, I ask you whether it is just to condemn any Church or
any one who does not believe them? Do I condemn any one? or have I
condemned any man? "l Mr. Miller. I object to such a question. " MlF.
Irving. The witness has only deposed that I said they were in error on
that subject. " Mffr. Mann. Were the exhibitions of tongues in the church
by you and others similar to the exhibition you made this morning? It was
no exhibition, and I will not answer the question if you use that word.
"Well, display, then? It was no display, sir.
Page 472
472
EXAMINATION CONTINUED.-DEACON KER. "Well, manifestations, as you call
them; for I do not admit them to be of the Spirit of God; I call them an
outrage on decency. (General disapprobation, with cries of order.) I shall
not answer your question. "Well, I will put it in a different form: Were
the manifestations in the church by you and others similar to that we
heard this morning? Our gifts differ in some respects, although they are
similar in kind. We speak each a different tongue. "Did you understand
what you spoke this morning? I understood the English. " _Mr. Maclean. I
object to the question. " Solicitor. Such questions, I submit, have
nothing to do with the subject." Such questions, however, continue to be
put for some time longer, the witness being required to declare whether he
believes these manifestations to be of the Spirit of God; whether he
believes them in accordance with the standards of the Church; whether he
would ever have been impelled to speak had not Irving prayed for the
gifts; whether he did not believe his own atterances to be of higher
authority than Irving's preaching; and, finally, by a dexterous side wind,
whether any of these utterances " referred to the humanity of our blessed
Lord." This new question, altogether alien to the inquiry, and which the
Presbytery were perfectly well known to have publicly concluded upon long
before, was, however, reserved for the next witness, Mr. Ker, a deacon of
the National Scotch Church, and devoted adherent of Irving, concurring
with him in all his belief. His examination, after a few questions as to
points of fact, was conducted by the Presbytery, who proceeded to ask him
whether he had heard various matters of doctrine, in the first place the
second coming of Christ and the millennial reign, confirmed by the gifted
persons as the message of the Spirit. " Solicitor. I object to such
questions as irrelevant. ".Mr. Irving. Although my solicitor considers the
question irrelevant, I desire that all technical objections may be waived;
and whatever tends to bring out what I have taught, let itibe promulgated
to the world. I desire no concealment or reserve in respect to my
doctrine." Upon which the examination proceeded: "Have you heard such a
statement as this-That Christ's humanity was fallen and corrupt humanity.
I have heard it declared that His flesh was fallen.' Mr. Miaclean to the
Clerk noting the evidence. I-e has heard it declared that our Lord's flesh
was fallen and corrupt. "1Mr. Irving instantly rose and said, He has not
said any such word,
Page 473
SUDDEN
BLANDNESS OF THE EXAMINERS. 473 sir, as corrupt; why will you make
additions of your own to the evidence? "The Witness to Mr. Miaclean. I did
not say corrupt; the addition of one such word will alter the whole
meaning." A multitude of other questions follow, in which it is endeavored
to drive the witness to a declaration that the fact of these
manifestations sealed as perfect every word taught in the Church -a
statement from which, however, he guarded himself. When this was over, the
examination relaxed into a generosity as irrelevant and out of order as
the inquisition which preceded it. "In case we may not have got the whole
truth of this case," said the president of the court, with a blandness
which, followed as it was by renewed questions, looks quite as much like
an attempt to entrap the unwary speaker into some rash admission as to
extend to him a grace and privilege, " is there any thing which you wish
to add in exoneration of your minister?" "I thank you, sir," answered the
surprised witness, with a kind and anxious simplicity most characteristic
of the man, and which his friends will readily recognize. "I would only
say that I believe nothing could be so painful to Mr. Irving as that any
one should interrupt the public services of the Church except those
persons through whom the Holy Ghost speaks." A renewed flood of questions
as to who is to be the judge whether the Holy Ghost speaks, etc., etc.,
followed this affectionate and natural speech, and the whole concluded
with a return to the question of doctrine. "Mr. MJacdonald. It has been
said that the doctrine taught respecting the Lord's humanity is that He
came in fallen flesh; has the witness said that the manifestations
commended this doctrine particularly? Yes. " Moderator. Have the
complainers finished their case? " Mr. Manne. We have. "The court was then
adjourned till next day at eleven o'clock." This was the entire amount of
evidence taken. Some time after, the *Times, taking the trouble to
interfere in an elaborate leading article, congratulated the public that,
after a " laborious investigation," the Presbytery had decided
unanimously. This one day, however, of theological fence, varied with such
occasional insolences as few men endowed with the temporary power of
crossexamination seem able to deny themselves, is the total amount of the
inquiry so ostentatiously described. Had the reverend judg
Page 474
474
UNANIMITY OF THE WITNESSES. es confined themselves to the real evidence
which the complaint demanded, their sitting need not have lasted above an
hour or tvo; but the greater part of the day engaged in this "laborious
investigation" was occupied with personal inquisition into the thoughts
and opinions of the three witnesses, which had no bearing whatever upon
the case. So easy is it to give with a word a totally false impression
even of a contemporary event. I need not draw attention to the very
peculiar character of the evidence, which must strike every one in the
least-degree interested. The three witnesses thus examined upon oath
proved, so far as a man's solemn asseveration can, not that unlawful and
riotous interruptions had taken place in the Regent Square Church, but
that the Iloly Ghost had there spoken with demonstration and power. This
was the real evidence elicited by the day's examination. Nobody attempted
to impeach the men, or declare them unworthy of ordinary credit; and this
was the point which, according to the common principles of evidence, they
united to establish. I can not tell what might be the motive of the
complainants for keeping back all who held their own view of the question,
and resting their case solely upon the testimony of believers in the
gifts; but the fact is apparent enough, and one of the most strange
features of the transaction, that the witnesses, upon whom no imputation
of falsehood was cast, consistently and solemnly agreed in proving an
hypothesis which the court that received their testimony, and professed to
be guided by their evidence, not only negatived summarily, but even
refused to take into consideration.* From this day's work, anxious and
harassing as it naturally must have been to him, Irving went home, not to
rest, or refresh among his loyal supporters the spirit which was grieved
with the antagonism of his former brethren, but to meet with Mr. Baxter,
and to be assailed by that gentleman's eager argument to prove * I can
scarcely express the painful surprise with which, born a Presbyterian, and
accustomed to regard with affectionate admiration, scarcely less than that
which animated Irving himself during almost all his life, the economy of
the Church of Scotland, I have discovered, and the reluctance with which I
have felt myself constrained to point out, the singular heedlessness,
haste, and unfairness of these Presbyterial investigations. The discovery
was as novel and as painful to me, who have in former days been very
confident on the other side of the question, as it can be to the most
devoted lover of Presbyterian discipline and order. I can not allow, even
now, that it is necessary to the system, which is surely capable of better
things; but that the Presbytery of London were not singular in their
manner of exercising their judicial functions is proved by the voluminous
proceedings of the Presbyteries of Dunbarton and Irvine in the cases of
Messrs. Campbell and Maclean.
Page 475
UNMOVED
BY DISCOURAGEMENTS. 475 himself in the wrong, and attempts to overthrow
the fabric which he had done so much to bring into being. "I saw him again
in the evening, and on the succeeding morning I endeavored to convince him
of his error of doctrine, and of our delusions concerning the work of the
Spirit," says the prophet, so suddenly disenchanted, and so vehement in
his abrupt recantation, "' but he was so shut up he could not see either."
This evening and morning, which were vexed by Mr. Baxter's arguments,
might well have been spared to the all-laboring man, who was now to appear
for himself at the bar of the Presbytery, and make, before the curious
world which watched the proceedings in that obscure Scotch church at
London Wall, his defense and self-vindication. Fresh from the endeavors of
Mr. Baxter to convince him that the most cherished belief of his heart was
a delusion, Irving once more took his way through the toiling city in the
April sunshine, which beguiles even London into spring looks and hopes.
Little sunshine, only a lofty constancy and steadfast composure of faith
was in his heart-that heart which had throbbed with so many heroic hopes
and knightly projects under those same uncertain skies. Another of the "
gifted," who had woven so close a circle round him, had just then lost
heart, and wavered like Baxter in her faith. With such discouragements in
his way, and with all the suggestions of self-interest (so far as he was
capable of them), and a hundred more delicate appeals, reminders of old
affection and tender habitude, to hold him back to the old paths, he went
to the bar of the Presbytery. The speech he was to make to-day must tear
asunder, in irrevocable disruption, the little remnant of life which
remained to him from all the splendid past-must throw him into a new
world, strange to all his associations, unacquainted with those ways of
thought and habit he was born in, totally unaware of the extent and
bitterness of his sacrifice. That intrusive apparition of the prophet
penitent, declaring his own prophetic gift a delusion, makes the strangest
climax to the darkness, the pain, and the difficulty of the position.
Irving, however, shows no signs of hesitation-betrays no tumult in his
mind. His faith was beyond the reach even of such a blow; and, in full
possession of all that natural magnificence of diction, noble reality, and
power of moving men's hearts, which even his enemies could not resist, he
presented himself to make his defense. This speech, which is a thoroughly
characteristic production, I give at length in the Appendix, only
indicating here the nature
Page 476
476
ORDER OF IRVING'S DEFENSE. of the argument. After declaring that it is
"for the name of Jesus, the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, that I now stand
here before you, and before this court, and before all this people, and am
called in question this day," he announces the order according to which he
intends to make his explanation: First. As I am to justify the thing which
I have done, it is needful 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. 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 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." He
accordingly proceeds to set forth the scriptural grounds on which, some
years before, he had been led to conclude that the extraordinary gifts of
the Spirit might be legitimately looked and prayed for; and then coming
down to the real course of events, relates, with all his wonderful power
of close and minute narrative, the first circumstances of their
appearance; his own anxious trying of the spirits; the long and careful
investigation to which he subjected them, and the final entire
satisfaction and belief of his own mind and of many others. I have quoted
so largely from this narrative in a previous chapter that it is
unnecessary to go over it again, and I proceed to the more personal
defense, only pausing to remind the reader of the lofty ingenuousness with
which Irving declares his own mind to have been biased, to begin with, by
his perfect conviction that God-from whom he and his disciples had daily,
with an absolute sincerity and fervor of which the leader of these
entreaties has no doubt, asked the baptism with the Holy Ghost-would not
give them a stone instead of bread. He then enters into a lofty
vindication of his own office and authority: "It is complained by the
trustees.... that I have allowed the worship of God to be interrupted by
persons speaking who are neither ordained ministers nor licentiates of the
Church of Scotland. Now, respecting the ordering of it, which is here
complained against as a violation of the trust-deed, and a violation of
the constitution 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
Page 477
THE HEAD
OF EVERY MAN. 477 I done nothing contrary to the Word of God, but, men and
brethren, I have done nothing against the people or the 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..... 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. "gMr. 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." He then explains
the "arrangements" he had made to allow room for the utterances, which had
been largely commented on, partly by way of showing that he had encouraged
the interruptions, and partly that, taking his own view of the subject, he
had himself, in some measure, been guilty of limiting the Spirit. "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 the 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..... 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 * This refers to a statement made by the
Moderator, that in case of any new development of doctrine unprovided for
in the standards, the constitutional mode of procedure for a Scotch
minister was to call the attention of the General Assembly to it by means
of an overture from his own Presbytery. I despair of making the
phraseology of Scotch Church courts intelligible to English readers.
Page 478
478
RECORDS OF ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITY. 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.". He then
proceeds to show, with large quotations from the first " Book of
Discipline," that a regular " exercise" for " prophesying or interpreting
the Scriptures" had been instituted in the early Reformation Church, by
which it was provided that learned men, or those that had " somewhat
profited in God's Word," should not only be exhorted to meet for joint
exposition of the Scriptures according to the apostolic rule ?" Let two or
three prophets speak, and let the rest judge"-but that, "if 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;" from which he justly argues, that "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?" Then rising into loftier self-vindication as he proceeds, he
declares that, had there been ordinances of the Church of Scotland
forbidding the manifestations (which there were not), he would still have
felt it necessary to disobey them in exercise of the higher loyalty which
he owed to the Head of the Church; and winds up this part of his address
by the following solemn disavowal: "I deny every charge brought against me
seriatim, and say it is not persons, but the Holy Ghost that speaketh in
the church. I do not say what the judgment of the Presbytery might be if
they could * Meaning, in other words, expounded the lesson.
Page 479
THE
CONSCIENCE OF THE PRESBYTERY. 479 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. The evidence is entirely to this effect; not one
witness hath witnessed to the contrary. I say," he proceeds after an
interruption, " I submit this matter to the Presbytery as to a number of
men endowed with conscience-with the conscience and discernment of the
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 courtthe law of every man; and I
say that this Presbytery are called upon before the Lord Jesus to see and
ascertain whether that thing which 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 one 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 those witnesses, shut their eyes
willfully against such testimony in this matter.... 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 table; 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 then no such thing in being..... 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.... Think ye, oh 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 averments being right, and
see what you 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 a high
hand, and without examination or consideration, upon any ground, upon any
authority, even though ye 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!... I beseech you to pause.... Be wise, men; come
and hear for yourselves, when you will have an opportunity of judging.
Come and hear for yourselves.
Page 480
480
SPEECH OF THE ACCUSER. 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..... 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 the 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, this 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...." This speech, interrupted two or three times by hot
discussions and calls to order, was replied to on the same day by Mr.
Mann, the spokesman of the trustees, who "considered it his duty to reply
to the unseemly and untimely denunciations with which he was bold to say
the reverend defender had attempted to stem the torrent of justice." And
proceeding in the unequal strife, not content with the manifold
disadvantages under which he labored as opposed to Irving's noble
eloquence, this gentleman did all he could to vulgarize and debase the
whole question, by contending that it was a question of discipline only,
in which the Word of God was no authority; and called upon the reverend
defender to bethink himself of the Confession of Faith which he had
signed, and as an honest man to separate himself in fact from the Church
from which he had already separated in spirit. After this the court
adjourned for a week, during the course of which the " reverend defender"
thus assailed went on with those labors which one of his friends called
"unexampled," in no way withdrawing from his wonderful exertions,
preparing, with all the catechisings and preparatory services usual before
a Scotch communion, for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. On the
following Wednesday the Presbytery again assembled; and with a gleam of
magnanimity, in consideration of the fact that Irving had no appeal from
their decision, but-contrary to Presbyterian usage, which, had he been in
Scotland, would have permitted him a double appeal to the Provincial Synod
and General Assemblymust accept their sentence as final, offered him the
privilege of answering the speech of Mr. Mann, which he did accordingly in
an impassioned and noble oration.* still more intense, because * See
Appendix C.
Page 481
IRVING'S
REPLY. 481 more personal than the former; thrilling with all the
indignation, the grief, the faith absolute and immovable, the injured and
mournful affection which rent his breast. That there are some passages in
this splendid address where the -speaker, flushed with palpable injustice,
and angry in his righteous heart at the superficial basis on which a
question, to himself the most momentous, was thus injuriously set down,
delivers himself of warnings too solemn and startling to chime in with the
mild phraseology of modern days, is undeniable; but the point on which he
insists is so plainly a necessity to any just decision of the matter
involved, that few people who consider it seriously will be surprised to
find that Irving is betrayed into a certain impatience by the pertinacious
determination, shown equally by his accusers and his judges, not to enter
into the question by which alone the case could be decided. Such a
singular and obstinate evasion of the real point at issue, involving as it
did all his dearest' interests, might well chafe the spirit of the meekest
of men; yet he returns again and again with indignant patience to the
question which his judges refused to consider. "If these be the
manifestations of the Holy Ghost," he asks, " what court under heaven
would dare to interpose and say they shall 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 believed the work to be of the Holy Ghost. Surely
not in the Christian Church does such a body exist. Therefore the decision
must entirely depend on this: whether it be of the Holy Ghost, or whether
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 canons 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 Spirit of God, should be allowed to keep
Him out? And is it possible that the Presbytery should shuffle off the
burden of this 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?" After this most just protest, he descends to enter the lists
with his accusers upon their own ground, and assert that " there is not
one word in the standards against the thing I have done;" the fact being
that the only reference in those documents, according to the admission of
the Presbytery themselves, is a statement in Hr H
Page 482
482 THE
PROPHETIC CHARACTER. the Westminster Confession, that the "extraordinary"
offices of apostle, prophet, etc., had ceased-a statement which the
earlier Book of Discipline, the authority of which the Church of Scotland
had never repudiated, limits by the more modest suggestion, that "they may
be revived if the Lord sees good." After this Irving enters into: a most
remarkable discussion of the character of the prophetic office, and the
possibility of a prophet deceiving himself by attempting to make an
arbitrary interpretation of the Divine message he utters; in which he
takes as his text the singular utterance of the Prophet Jeremiah-" 0 Lord,
Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived"-and proceeds to elucidate a
character which most of-his hearers believed utterly extinct, with all the
close and intense observation. which distinguished him, and with a lofty,
visionary reasonableness which, could the character itself be but granted
real and existent, would make this an exposition of high metaphysical
value.'In'the course of this singular and close picture of the prophetic
temperament and its perils, he refers in the following terms to Baxter,
whose name was by this time discussed every where, and whose desertion.was
the heaviest possible blow in the eyes of the public to the new faith. "A
dear friend of my own," said Irving, coming fresh from that troublesome
and impetuous friend's remonstrances and recantation, "who lately spake by
the Spirit of God in my church-as all the spiritual of the Church fully
acknowledged, and almost all acknowledge still ?I mean Mr. Baxter, whose
name is in every body's mouth, hath, I believe, been taken in this very
snare of endeavoring to interpret by means of a mind 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." The orator then, leaving this mysterious subject-to his
exposition: of which his audience seems to have listened in rapt silence,
probably too much carried away by the strange influence of his faith, and
the life-like personality in which he clothed:this unbelievable,-
prophetic ideal, to object-returns to the more personal question, and
bursts forth in' natural and'manful indignation.. " I
Page 483
"
DISHONESTY!" 483 was taxed with dishonesty," he exclaims, " 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?... It is a great and grave question affecting the rights 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?" Then changing, as he could, with the
highest intuitions of harmony, the stops of that noble organ, the great
preacher falls into the strain of self-exposition, so full of simple
grandeur, with which he was wont to reveal the working of his own candid
soul and tender heart. "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 upon the other. I would it had been such;
neither they nor you 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 as 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 matter of personal feeling. One whole day
I remember, before meeting the elders and deacons of my church, upon 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 no longer be 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 self* In justice to the speaker on the other
side, it ought, however, to be noted here that Irving seems to have
mistaken his meaning, which I presume to be the ordinary, arbitrary, and
easy conclusion, that when a clergyman expands or alters his views, so as
under any interpretation to vary from the laws of his Church, scrupulous
honor would dictate his withdrawal from its communion; a notion very
specious upon the face of it.
Page 484
484
IRVING PREFERS HIS DUTY TO HIS FEELINGS. ish 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
couInsel 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 an iota
from my firm and rooted purpose to live and die for Jesus. God only knows
the great searchings of heart that 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 a 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 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 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 also 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, 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, and that ye may not put your hands rashly upon the man 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 matter, that they should charge dishonesty upon me. I am another man's
servant, another man's debtor.... If this deed to which they have obliged
themselves compel them to raise an action against me before this
Presbytery, then
Page 485
A LAMB
OF THE FLOCK. 485 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 Master to abide where his Master
hath placed him, and where he hath; offended neither against the
ordinances of God nor the covenants of man." Thus, in his most
characteristic strain, did Irving make his defense; not without frequent
reference to the great point of the first day's proceedings, which was the
refusal of the Presbytery to permit his appeal to the Scriptures, a
resolution against which he entered his solemn protest, but which his
judges, with many little interruptions of self-vindication, adhered to.
When his speech was concluded, he withdrew with an apology to the
Presbytery for his inability to be present at their decisive meeting,
which was to take place the same evening, as he had to preach that night.
Before he left the court, however, Mr. Mann, the spokesman of the
trustees, who had vainly begged to be heard in reply, assailed the
much-tried defender with another arrow. One of the prophetesses, a Miss
Hall, about whom I can find no details, had, like Baxter, accused herself
of delusion. "Does Mr. Irving consider he has acted fairly and honestly by
the Presbytery," said his accuser, who seems to have lost in the heat of
conflict the affectionate and reverential feelings which all entertained
toward the great preacher before this actual antagonism with its angry
impulses commenced, " in not acknowledging to them that Miss Hall has been
acting under delusion? " The.Moderator. That is not before the court. "
Mr. Irving. She is one of the lambs of my flock-she is carried in my
bosom. Oh, she is one of the lambs of my flock! and shall I bring one of
the lambs of my.flock, who may have been deluded -and led astray, before a
public court? Never-never, while I have a pastor's heart!" This
exclamation of natural feeling moved the general audience out of
propriety. It was received with involuntary applause, which seems to have
led to the immediate adjournment of the offended court. In the evening the
Presbyterymet again to determine upon their sentence-a sentence on the
nature of which nobody could have any doubt, if it were not, the generous
soul of the accused himself, who " could not endure to think" that they
would decide against him. Five clerical members of the court spoke one
after another, announcing with such solemnity as they could their several
but unanimous conclusion. I have no desire to represent
Page 486
486
DECISION OF THE PRESBYTERY. these men as judging unfairly, or as acting in
this new matter upon their own well-known prior conclusions. But the fact
is remarkable, in a country so familiar as ours with all the caution and
minute research of law, that the judgment of this Presbytery, involving as
it did not only the highest privileges of Christian freedom, but practical
matters of property and income, uttered itself in the shape of so many
opinions, as loose, slight, and irregular as might be the oracles of a
fireside conclave. Instead of close and cool examination of those canons
of the Church to which they had demonstrated their allegiance with
protestations unnecessarily vehement, their only appeal to law consisted
of one or two cursory quotations which bore only superficially upon the
subject. "The public. worship being begun," says one of the judges,
quoting from the Directory for Public Worship, " the people are wholly to
attend upon it, forbearing to read any thing except what the minister is
then reading or citing, and abstaining much more from all private
whisperings, conference, etc., and other indecent behavior which may
disturb the minister or people, or hinder themselves or others in the
service of God." Another announces the ground of his decision in the words
of the Westminster Confession, that " the whole counsel of God, concerning
all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life,
is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary
consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time
is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of
men." A third cites the statement of the same Confession, that " the Holy
Scripture is most necessary, those former ways" (i. e., direct
revelations) "of God's revealing His will to His people being now ceased;"
and another from the Directory of Public Worship, to the effect that the
extraordinary offices of apostles, prophets, and evangelists have ceased.
These slight quotations constitute the entire reference made to the canons
of ecclesiastical law in order to settle a matter so important. To people
who are accustomed to see the columns of newspapers filled day after day
with close, lengthened, and, it may be, tedious arguments concerning the
true meaning of the Articles of the Church, it will be almost
inconceivable that any decision, bearing weight in law, could be come to
upon grounds so trivial; yet such was the case; and the extraordinary
recklessness which could stake an honorable man's character and position
upon the opinions or impressions of a group of fellow-clergymen, supported
Page 487
SCRAPS
OF THE CONFESSION. 487 by the merest shreds of quotation from those
Articles by which, and by which' alone they professed to be guided, has
never, so far as I am aware, been so much as remarked by the community
most interested. If he was to be judged by'the standards of the Church, it
must be apparent to every one that the merest superficial rules of justice
required a close examination of those standards, a patient and detailed
scrutiny, care' being had to arrive at the true meaning, and to put aside
the individual and local circumstances which so evidently and avowedly
color those productions of a belligerent age. Nothing can be more evident,
for example, than that the extract from the Directory'above quoted refers
simply to the irreverent behavior in church of a half-enlightened people,
and is entirely innocent'of any allusion to utterances -of either real or
pretended inspiration' and few people will imagine that, apart from other
evidence, the declaration of the Westminster divines that "those former
ways of God's revealing His will to His people have now ceased," could
either finally settle the question, or was ever intended by those very
divines. themselves to settle it. The Presbytery decided that to suffer
unauthorized persons to speak in'the Church was a capital offense against
the laws of the Church of Scotland, in direct opposition to those
directions quoted by Irving.for the exercise of" prophesying or
interpreting the Scriptures," which appear in one of the authoritative
books of that Church, and which point to an assembly almost identical with
that'over.which Irving'presided, with the exception that the former laid
claim to no miraculous gifts. " This has just exactly the reverse meaning
of what the reverend defender had endeavored to extract from it, not to
mention that there is nothing here about these prophets speaking on a
Sunday," says the Moderator, with a simple and amusing dogmatism which
attempts no proof; and the other members of the court give forth their
opinions with equal looseness, each man using a few inapplicable words out
of the Confession, as if it were a charm which could convert his personal
notions into a solemn judgment. I neither assert' nor imagine that there
was the least dishonesty in the conclusions so strangely arrived at, or
that the judges were not quite conscientious, and convinced that they were
doing their duty; but, so far as law and justice are concerned, the entire
proceedings were a mere mockery, only rendered more palpably foolish by
the show of legal form and ceremony with which they were conducted. Had
the matter been argued before a civil court, it
Page 488
488
CHARACTER OF PRESBYTERIAN WORSHIP. might, indeed, have been decided that
the proceedings complained of were contrary to the usage of the Church of
Scotland, no doubt an important point; but it must have been
satisfactorily established that no ecclesiastical law* forbade them, and
that no direct ordinance of the Church had been in any way transgressed.
At the same time, while this is very evidently the case, it is necessary
to admit that the spiritual manifestations then taking place in Irving's
church were, though contrary to no ecclesiastical canon, yet thoroughly
contrary to the character and essence of Presbyterian worship; and that
only the existence, not to be hoped for, of an imperturbable judicial
mind, resolute in the majesty of law, and beyond the influence of feeling,
in the court that judged him, could have made a different result possible.
Those outbursts of prophetic voices, exciting and unexpected, were
palpably at the wildest variance with the rigid decorums of that national
worship which has so carefully abstracted every thing which can influence
either imagination or sense from its austere services. And a body of men
trained to the strictest observance of this affronted order of worship,
totally unaccustomed to the exactitude of law, and important in the
exercise of an authority which they would have unanimously declared it an
infraction of Christ's sovereignty in His Church had any qualified adviser
attempted to guide, were scarcely to be supposed so superior to
Presbyterial precedent as to conduct this trial on the cautious principles
of civil equity. They quoted ecclesiastical law as uninstructed
controversialists quote texts, by way of giving a certain vague authority
to their own opinions, but the idea of examining scrupulously what that
law really enforced and meant, or wherein the actions of the accused were
opposed to it, never seems to have entered the minds of the hasty
Presbyters. The Confessions of Faith and Books of Discipline, to which
Irving referred so often, had, in fact, nothing to do with the matter.
Apart from all disputed doctrine and irritated theological temper, a
simple matter of fact, visible to all the world, had to be dealt with; a
startling novelty had suddenly disturbed the sober composure of the Scotch
Church, which was no way to be reconciled with its habitual reserve and
gravity, and somehow had to be got rid of. Scotch observers, looking back
at the present moment, regretful of the necessity, still ask, * That this
is the case, and that no such rigid adherence to the proprieties of custom
binds the Church when she chooses to be tolerant, might be proved by the
many irregularities permitted in connection with the late " revivals."
Page 489
THE
VERDICT. 489 What could they do? And I can not tell what they could have
done except examine, and wait, and tolerate-three things which the
national temperament finds more difficult than any action or exertion. "I
do not dissent from your assertion that the Scotch Consistory had no
choice but to expel Irving from the body," writes the Rev. F. D. Maurice;
"-I do not say that the authorities of the English Church, if they had
(unhappily) the same kind of jurisdiction, might not or may not exercise
it in the same manner; but I know few signs which (in the latter case) I
should deem so sure a prognostic of coming desolation." The Scotch mind,
much less tolerant and more absolute than the Englishthat same mind which
makes it by times a "unanimous hero nation," had already learned to make
abrupt settlement of such questions; and, unless the Presbytery had been
content to wait with Gamaliel and see whether this thing was of God or
not, the decision they came to was the only one to be looked for from
them. But the laws of the Church, those standards which they themselves
set up as the ultimate reference, had absolutely nothing at all to do with
the matter. The verdict ?elaborately enveloped, as will be seen, in the
perplexing obscurity of Scotch law terms, which, taken in connection with
the wonderful lack of law in the proceedings themselves, throw an air
almost of absurdity upon it-was as follows: "At a meeting of the London
Presbytery, held at the Scotch Church, London Wall, this 2d day of May,
1830: "Whereas the Trustees of the National Scotch Church, Regent Square,
having, on the 22d day of March last, delivered to the Moderator of this
Presbytery a memorial and complaint, charging the Rev. Edward Irving with
certain deviations from the doctrine and discipline of the Church of
Scotland, in the said complaint particularly set forth, and praying that
this Presbytery would forthwith take the same into their consideration, so
as to determine the question whether, by such breaches of doctrine and
discipline: the said Rev. Edward Irving hath not rendered himself unfit to
remain the minister of the said National Scotch Church, and ought not to
be removed therefrom, in pursuance of the conditions of the trust-deed of
the said church. And whereas the said Rev. Edward Irving, having
previously been delated and convicted before this Presbytery on the ground
of teaching heresy concerning the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ,
has been declared to be no longer a member thereof, yet, in respect that
the trust-deed of the said church, legally drawn and concluded with the
consent of the said Rev. Edward Irving, and the said trustees as parties
thereto, expressly provides not only that this Presbytery shall or may act
and adjudicate in all cases of complaint brought in the manner therein
specified against the minister of the
Page 490
490
IRVING "UNFIT TO REMAIN A MINISTER." said church for the time being, by
certain persons therein specified; but that the award or decision of this
Presbytery in all such matters, so referred to them as aforesaid, shall be
final and conclusive. "And further, in regard that the trustees of the
said church, being of the parties competent to complain as aforesaid, have
laid before this Presbytery, in the manner prescribed by the said
trust-deed, the memorial and complaint hereinbefore-mentioned or referred
to, against the said Rev. Edward Irving, charging him as aforesaid with
certain deviations from the doctrine and discipline of the Church of
Scotland, as mentioned in the said complaint particularly, in as far as he
has permitted and publicly encouraged, during public worship on Sabbath
and other days, the exercise of certain supposed gifts by persons being
neither ministers nor licentiates of the Church of Scotland, in
contravention, as well of his ordination vows, as of the true intent and
meaning of the said trust-deed, which, in the governing clause thereof,
provides that the said National Scotch Church, of which the said Rev.
Edward Irving is the present minister, shall, at all times hereafter, be
used, occupied, and enjoyed as a place for the public religious worship
and service of God, according to the doctrines, forms of worship, and
modes of discipline of the Established Church; an account of all which
deviations and innovations the said trustees, offering proof of the same,
have petitioned this Presbytery to decern in the premises, according to
the provisions of the said trust-deed. And farther, in regard that the
said complaint has in all respects been orderly proceeded in. And that on
the 26th and 27th days of April last, and on this 2d day of May instant,
the said trustees on the one part, and the said Rev. Edward Irving on the
other, having severally compeared before this Presbytery, and probation
having been taken on said complaint by the examination of witnesses upon
oath, and by documentary evidence lodged in process, and parties having
been heard and removed; therefore this Presbytery, having seriously and
deliberately considered the said complaint and the evidence adduced,
together with the statements made in court by the said Rev. Edward Irving,
and acting under a deep and solemn sense of their responsibility to the
Lord Jesus Christ as the great Head of the Church, do find that the
charges in said complaint are fully proven; and therefore, while deeply
deploring the painful necessity thus imposed upon them, they did and
hereby do decern that the said Rev. Edward Irving has rendered himself
unfit to remain the minister of the National Scotch Church aforesaid, and
ought to be removed therefrom, in pursuance of the conditions of the
trust-deed of the said church. JAMES REID BROWN, "Moderator of the
Presbytery of the Established Church of Scotland in London." The following
morning had scarcely dawned when the triumphant!iress echoed and
celebrated this decision. Never before was a Presbytery out of Scotland so
watched and so applauded. The Times itself opened with a discharge of its
great guns in honor of the victory, devoting a leading article to the
subject;
Page 491
TRIUMPH
OF THE PRESS. ?"TIMES" AND "RECORD." 491 "The blasphemous absurdities
which have for some months'past been enacted in -the Caledonian Church,
Regent Square," says the leading journal, " are now, we trust, brought to
an effectual conclusion. The Scotch Presbytery in London, who are, by the
trust-deed of the chapel, appointed to decide on any alleged departure of
its minister from the standards of the Kirk of Scotland, to which, by the
same deed, he is sworn to adhere, last night, after a laborious
investigation, declared that the fooleries which he had encouraged or
permitted were inconsistent with the doctrine and discipline of the Scotch
National Establishment. It would, indeed, have been a subject of wonder
had they come to a different conclusion, though they had had the benefit
of a concert upon the'tongues' from the whole male and female band of Mr.
Irving's select performers. So long as the reverend gentleman occupied the
stage himself," continues this great authority in religious doctrine, " he
was heard with patienceperhaps sometimes with pity;.... but when he
entered into partnership with knaves and impostors, to display their
concerted' manifestations'-when he profaned the sanctuary of God by
introducing hideous interludes of' the unknown tongues,' it was impossible
any longer to tolerate the nuisance." Such terms had Irving, with his
lofty sense of honor and chivalrous truthfulness, to hear applied to
himself and to endure. The Record, with milder, but not less triumphant
satisfaction, follows in a similar strain, emphasizing its rejoicing by
congratulating its readers not only upon Baxter's recantation, but upon
the timely withdrawal of Irving's assistant and missionary from the
falling house-that gentleman having not only had his eyes opened to the
delusion, of the gifts, but also to the ".awful heresy in regard to our
Lord's humanity, which it has been the privilege of this journal
steadfastly to resist." Such were the paeans with which the perfectly
illogical and indefensible decision of the London Presbytery was received
in the outside world, and such the accompaniments with which this heavy
blow fell upon Irving. The assistant who deserted him at so painful a
crisis had been his companion for but a short time, and appears but little
either in the history of the struggle, or in those all-demonstrative
letters in which Irving, incapable of concealment, reveals his heart and
soul. It is a relief to turn from all this misrepresentation and
injustice; from the reckless Presbyters who refused to examine either
their own law or the real question at issue; from the contemptuous
journalists, to whom this matter was only one of the wonders of the day, a
fanaticism as foreign and unintelligible as heaven; from disenchanted
prophets and failing friends, to Irving himself, spending the next day
after, morning and evening and at noon, in
Page 492
492 THE
FAST-DAY. ?CLOSING OF THE CHURCH. the labors and devotions of that
dedicated day preparatory to the communion, which Scottish piety still
calls par excellence the Fastday, totally as the ordinance of fasting has
disappeared from the nation. He did not intermit those services, although
it was now uncertain whether the church would be open to him on the next
Sunday for the celebration of the sacrament. "The tokens* were given, to
be kept (if not delivered up on Sunday) as a bond of union till such time
as the Lord shall guide the flock to some other place of refuge," writes a
lady, whose diffuse woman's letter deepens into momentary pathos when,
speaking of Irving in that day's services, she exclaims, "II verily
believe he offered to God the sacrifice of a broken heart." It was the
last sacrifice of his ever to be offered in that place where " the ashes
of his children rested," as he himself mournfully said. The next morning,
in the early May sunshine, before the world was half awake, the daily
congregation, gathering to their matins, found the gates of the church
closed upon them. Perhaps it was that " wrath with those we love,"
working'"like madness in the brain," the bitter anger of a brother
offended, which moved the trustees to so abrupt a use of their power. " I
strongly urged them to allow the church to remain open till after the
dispensation of the sacrament," writes Mr. Hamilton, who had been a sad
spectator throughout, specially intimating his non-concurrence, as being
himself a trustee, in the complaint of the others, although unable in
conscience to offer any opposition to them; "but they refused to do so on
the ground that, as they could nort conscientiously join with Edward
themselves, they would thereby be deprived, under the provisions of the
trust-deed, from having a voice in the election of a future minister, and
also because it would bring a great accession of friends to Edward"-two
hundred new members, according to the same authority, having applied for
admission; so they put an arbitrary stop to all the multiplied services
with which the Church of Scotland prefaces its communion, and just as the
sacred table was about to be spread, silently prohibited that solemn
farewell feast, and left the large congregation, with its two hundred new
members, to seek what accommodation it could find in the two days which
intervened. They found it in a place of which the Morning Watch declares,
"Nothing could be more re* Admission to the communion being in the Scotch
Church hedged in with many restrictions, it is customary to distribute
these "tokens" before every observance of the ordinance, without which no
one is admitted to the " fenced" and guarded table.
Page 493
GRAY'S
INN ROAD. 493 pugnant to the judgment, taste, and feeling of all the
members than the asylum to which they were driven. A barn or a cowshed
would have been preferable, but none such were to be obtained." This was a
large room in Gray's Inn Road, occupied at other times by the well-known
Robert Owen, and which was not only desecrated by that association, but
too small to hold the large body of Irving's adherents. In this place,
however, in that dismal centre of London life, the holy feast was held on
the 6th of May, by almost the entire Church, about eight hundred
communicants; and here, for some months, the more solemn services of the
Church were celebrated; while Irving preached out of doors in various
places, sometimes in Britannia Fields, sometimes in Islington Green, to
the multitudes who assembled wherever his presence was known. Such was the
first step he had to make in that new world, outside what his followers
call "the splendid towers of Regent Square," outside the ancient circle:
of companions and counselors who.had deserted him. Of the pangs of that
parting he henceforth says not a word, but goes on in sad grandeur,
feeling to the depths of his heart all the fullness of the change. Between
the church he had founded and watched over as stone upon stone it had
grown into being, and round which, in his fond imagination, the venerable
prestige of the Church of his fathers had always hovered, and the big room
in that squalid London street, where foolish-benevolent Unbelief* shared
the possession with him, and played its frivolous pranks of philanthropy
under the same roof which echoed his religious voice, amid all the sneers
of the prejudiced world outside, what a difference was there! But after
the struggles of the so-called " trial" were over, not a word of complaint
or reproach comes to his lips; he proceeds with those " unexampled
labors." Multitudes stand hushed before him on those summer days, as on
the parched suburban grass, or under the walls of the big prison, he
preaches the Gospel of his Master, with an eloquence deeper and richer, a
devotion more profound and perfect,:than when the greatest in the land
crowded to his feet, and all that was most wise and most fair in society
listened and * I may notice here; so strong is the power of even a
momentary and fortuitous connection of two names, that some friends of my
own, entirely ignorant otherwise of Irving, have confidently assured me
that he had something to do with the infidel Owen, as I was sure to find
onut on examination! This is, I need not say, the entire amount of that
connection.
Page 494
494
OUT-DOOR PREACHING.-THE LOST CHILD. thrilled to his prophet voice. But not
his now the prophet voice; by his side, or in the crowd near him, is some
obscure man or woman, to hear whom, when the burst of utterance comes upon
them, the great preacher pauses with rapt looks and ear intent; for that
utterance, because he believes it to be the voice of God, he has borne "
reproach, casting out, deprivation of every thing save life itself,"
writes one of his female relatives, with aggrieved and pathetic
indignation; and there he stands, in the unconscious splendor of his
humility, offering magnificent thanks when those strange ejaculations
give, what he believes a confirmation from heaven, to the Word he has been
teaching; a sight, if that voice were true, to thrill the universe; a
sight, if that voice were false, to make angels weep with utter love and
pity; any way, whether true or false, an attitude than which any thing
more noble and affecting has never been exhibited by man to men. One of
those outdoor sermons was distinguished by a thoroughly characteristic and
beautiful incident. It was shortly after his ejection from Regent Square,
on a summer Sunday morning, when surrounded by a little band of his own
people, and raised in "a temporary pulpit or platform made for his use by
one of his flock," Irving was preaching to the dense crowd which had
gathered round him. The subject of his discourse was, as the lady from
whom I have the information believes, that doctrine of regeneration in
baptism with which so many pangs of parental love and anguish were
associated in his mind. Suddenly he was interrupted by an appeal from the
crowd; a child had been lost in the throng by its parents, and was now
held up by the stranger who had extricated it, and who wanted to know what
he should do with the forlorn little creature. "Give me the child," said
the preacher; and with difficulty, through the multitude, the lost infant
was brought to him. "Mr. Irving stretched out his arms for it," says my
informant, "and in a moment it was nestling (just as we used to see his
own little baby do), with the most perfect confidence and contentment,
against his broad shoulder. It was a poor child, and poorly clothed, but
he was not the man to love it less on that account. We shall none of us
ever forget the wonderful manner in which Mr. Irving could hold an infant.
This one appeared to be perfectly happy from the moment it was in his
arms, while he continued to preach with as much ease and freedom as
before; and interweaving at once into his discourse (to which it was, of
course, most appropriate) our Lord's own lesson about the little
Page 495
AFFECTIONATE RECOLLECTION. 495 children, made this little one, as it were,
the text of his last clauses, which he prolonged considerably; when he had
concluded, in his final prayer and blessing, he particularly prayed for
and blessed "the little child;" and after the psalm had been sung, he
beckoned to the parents, who (as he had intended) had seen it from the
time he took it into his arms, to come and receive it back." The
affectionate writer goes on, with a little outburst of that loving
recollection which brings tears to the eyes and a tremor to the voice of
every one who remembers Irving, to say that in his lifetime they " hardly
dared to speak or think of those natural gifts which had, previously to
his more spiritual ministry,' gainedfor him the praises of the world." But
now, at a distance of thirty years, his friends can venture to recall the
picture-that figure almost gigantic, with the lost baby "literally
cradled" in his arms; the summer heavens blazing above; the breathless
crowd below; the solemn harmony of that matchless voice, full of all the
intonations of eloquence, to which nobody could listen unmoved; and that
living sign of a tenderness which embraced all helpless things, the love
with which his forlorn heart, wounded to its depths, yearned to its
brethren. "An intense sunshine bathed the whole," concludes the lady,
whose notes I have quoted. Under that sunshine, in fervid midsummer,
silent thousands stood and listened. This was now. the only means
remaining to Irving of communication with the outside world. And in these
preachings, with but here and there a scattered individual who retained,
or ever had known, allegiance' to the Church of Scotland near him, and in
the room in Gray's Inn Road -and still more strangely in the chapel where
the'Rev. Nicholas Armstrong, not long before a clergyman of the English
Church, and of fervent Irish blood, established the first dependent
congregation of the new sect-one sign of Irving's influence, as remarkable
as it is affecting, accompanied the services. So far as the London
Presbytery could do it, the great preacher had been cast out of the Church
of his fathers; he had been pronounced unfit to occupy any longer a pulpit
bound to the Church of Scotland; but, wherever Irving's friends and
followers'sang the praises of God, it was that'rugged version of the
Psalms of David which we, in Scotland, know from our cradles, and-all
poetic considerations out of the question-cherish to our graves, which
ascended'from the lips of the unaccustomed crowd. Those rugged measures,
by times grand in their simplicity, by times harsh and unmelodious
Page 496
496 THE
SCOTCH PSALMS. as only translated lyrics can be, which cheered the
death-passion of the Covenanter, and which Carlyle, with an almost
fantastic loyalty (in rebellion) to the faith that cradled him, puts into
the mouths of his mediaeval monks, Irving, in actual reality, put into the
mouths of his English followers. When his bold disciples interposed their
Gospel into the din of every-day life in the heart of London, and preached
at Charing Cross in the heat of the laborious hours, it was not the smooth
hymns of modern piety, but the strange songs of a sterner faith, which
mingled with the confused noises of the life-battle. To find those harsh
old verses, sometimes thrilling with an heroic touch, but at all times as
unlike the effusions of devotion in our days as can well be conceived,
preserved amid records of "manifestations" and sermons, upon neither the
speakers nor the hearers of which they had the least claim of association,
is a singular memorial of the affectionate reverence with which all his
followers regarded Irving. I can not tell how long this lasted;* but in
these days of excitement and commotion, when the expelled Church had no
refuge, but snatched its solemn celebrations in the obnoxious concert-room
which Robert Owen shared, and wandered out about those noisy suburbs to
find space for its preaching, it is always the old Psalms of Scotland
which rise quaint and strange upon the air, used to smoother, if not to
nobler measures. And throughout this summer there is a continual changing
of scene and place. The old green of Islington, swallowed up out of all
village semblance in the noisy centre of population; the still less
pleasant space overshadowed by Clerkenwell prison-nay, even, as we have
said, Charing Cross, which sometimes, in insular arrogance, we call the
centre of the world, all saw the wandering nucleus of devoted worshipers,
the gathering crowd, the preaching evangelist. Nor was there always the
same veneration shown, even to the great preacher himself, as in the
instance we have quoted. The newspapers of the day mention a threatened
assault upon him by the Jews, to whom he had preached in Goodman's Fields;
and he himself refers to the presence of "a multitude of strangers and
gazers," who " have insulted me, and do insult me daily:" while, at the
same time, he desires the prayers of the Church "for two brethren now
lying in prison," who were suffering for their zeal in this respect. The
newspapers, in the mean time, were full of * I am told that their use was
continued for several years, until the system of chanting the Psalms in
the prose version, as in the Church of England, was adopted.
Page 497
PRINCELY
HOSPITALITY. 497 sneers and contemptuous self-congratulations on having
foreseen the depths of the " foolery" into which this new fanaticism had
fallen; but I can not help thinking that this summer conveyed, amid the
labors that refreshed his soul, a little repose to Irving, who, at last,
was done with all the harassing cares of daily contest -the struggle with
his friends. It was over now; and if deserted on many sides, he was
comparatively unmolested. After the morning services the worshipers poured
into his house, which was still in Judd Place, and which, in that moment
of transition, had no certain provision even for its own necessities, and
crowded round the breakfast-table, where the man who knew how to live by
faith exercised, as Mr. Drummond described to me, "'a princely
hospitality." During the entire summer, the MJorning Watch informs us, the
members of the expelled Church had been " indefatigable in seeking to
purchase, hire, or build a chapel." None eligible offered for the former
purpose; and when it was resolved to erect a building, and money had been
collected toward defraying the expense, the Spirit expressly forbade it,
saying "that the Lord would provide in His own time." And, in fact, a
place adaptable for the purpose was found in the beginning of autumn, in
the large picture-gallery which had belonged to West, the painter, and
which was attached to his house in Newman Street, where, accordingly,
after a little interval, the changed congregation established itself,
remodeled and reorganized. That was a year almost as momentous and
exciting to the nation at large as it was to Irving and his people. It was
the year of the Reform Bill, and half the periodical literature of the day
was awful in prognostications which one reads nowadays with incredulous
smiles; and still more closely interesting and important, it was the year
of the cholera, when men's hearts were failing them for fear of the
uncomprehended plague, which stole, insidious and sudden, alike through
crowded streets and quiet villages. In the June number of the Morning
Watch appears a letter from Irving, touching an attack of this malady to
which he himself had been subject, and the manner in which he had
surmounted it, which is remarkable, as all his letters are, for the simple
and minute picture it gives of his own heart and emotions. The idea that
disease itself was sin, and that no man with faith in his Lord ought to be
overpowered by it, was one of the principles which began to be adopted by
the newly-separated community. II
Page 498
498 HOW
TO OVERCOME DISEASE BY FAITH. "To the Editor of the' Morning Watch.' " MY
DEAR FRIEND,-AS you have asked me to give you an account of the gracious
dealings of our heavenly Father with me, His unworthy servant, on the
occasion of my being seized with what was in all appearance, and to the
conviction of medical men, when described to them, seemed to be, that
disease which has proved fatal to so many of our fellow-creatures in this
and other lands, I sit down to do so with much gratitude of heart to my
God, who enabled me to hold fast my confidence in Him, and who did not
forsake me when I trusted in Him, nor suffer the adversary to triumph over
me, but gave me power, through faith in Christ my risen Head, to overcome
him when he endeavored, by his assault in my flesh, to shake my faith in
my God, and to prevent me from fulfilling that day to two different
congregations the office of a minister of Christ.... I feel I ought to
mention that, on the evening preceding my attack, I had preached from the
words in the 12th of I Cor.,'To another the gifts of healing by the same
Spirit.' I was led in discourse to show out to my flock that the standing
of the members of Christ was to be without disease, and that this had ever
been the standing of God's people.... And I added that if disease did come
upon them, as in the case of Job, it was either for chastening for some
sin, whether in themselves or in the body of Christ, for God ever views us
as one, or permitted as a trial of our faith. Having stated these things
out fully, I exhorted the saints of God before me to live by faith
continually on Jesus for the body as well as the soul.... Or, should their
faith be put to the test by disease, I entreated them to hold fast their
confidence, and to plead the Lord's own many and gracious promises to the
members of HiThurch, and in faith to go about the occupations which in His
providence they were called to perform, ever bearing in mind that
whatsoever they did should be for His glory, and that I had no doubt but
they would ever experience that the Lord honored their faith in His word.
"On the following morning I arose in perfect health at the usual hour, and
was in the church by half past six o'clock. During the prayer-meeting I
began to feel pain, but was able to go through the service.. A number of
friends accompanied me home to breakfast. On reaching home I became very
chill, and had very severe pain... After resting a while I felt a little
relieved, and entered the room where my friends were, and sat down by the
fire, unable to taste any thing. The hour's pain I had endured, and the
other trial of my constitution, had even then had such an effect on my
frame that my appearance -shocked my friends. I could take no interest in
the conversation going forward, but endeavored to lift up my heart to my
God, having a presentiment that I was called upon to show forth the faith
which I had on the preceding evening been led to exhort my people to have
in their heavenly Father. In the strength of God I proceeded, when my
friends had finished breakfast, to conduct family worship, which I was
enabled to do, though my body was so enfeebled that I could neither kneel
nor stand, having tried both positions, but had to sit while I prayed. I
then retired to my own room, in
Page 499
SUFFERINGS. ?RESOLVED TO FALL AT HIS POST. 499 order to search myself in
the presence of God, to confess my sins, to cast myself entirely on the
mercy of my Father, and to seek for strength to perform the duties of that
day, having to preach that forenoon at half past eleven o'clock, and again
in the evening at seven. I was now very sick, with a feeling of wringing
or gnawing pain through my whole body.... I was so weak that I could not
sit up, and in sore pain, with a painful chill all over my body. I
therefore wrapped me up in blankets and laid me on my bed, desiring to be
left alone until a few minutes before the time for setting out for the
house of God, where I should minister to His people. My orders were
obeyed, and my wish attended to. My wife entered my room about a quarter
past eleven o'clock. I felt so exhausted that I did not attempt to speak
to her. She saw my weakness and spoke not, but hurried down stairs to
prepare a little arrow-root and brandy for me, and to desire that my
fellow-laborer, the missionary of our Church, should go and take my place,
as she thought there was little hope of my reaching the church at the hour
when the service should commence. When my wife had left the room, though I
was no better, I said in the strength of the Lord I will rise and do my
duty. I arose, and came down stairs in tottering weakness, but holding
fast my assurance that, though brought very low, the Lord would not
forsake me.... My sunken eyes and pallid cheeks, and altogether my ghastly
appearance, my wife afterward told me, reminded her of her grandsire of
eighty-four, whose frame had been wasted with disease.... With slow and
difficult steps, accompanied by my wife and a young friend, I proceeded to
the church, about a quarter of a mile from my house; and on entering,
found my friend and fellow-laborer standing and ministering in my room.
All things tempted me to shrink back from my office; but I felt no
hesitation to instruct my faithful beadle, though he remonstrated much, to
go up to the pulpit and inform my brother that when he had finished the
first prayer I would take my place, and by God's help perform my own duty.
Meanwhile, I stretched myself on three chairs before the fire in the
vestry, barely able to keep myself in heat, and, by perfect stillness in
one position, a little to abate the pain. Ever as I shifted my position I
endured much suffering, and was almost involuntarily impelled to draw up
my limbs in order to keep the pain under. Nevertheless, when I stood up to
attire myself for the pulpit, and went forward to ascend the pulpit
stairs, the pains seemed to leave me. Over and over again my kind and
true-hearted brother besought me to let him proceed; but my mind was made
up to fall at my post, which I had an inward assurance my Master would not
suffer me to do. I began to read the chapter, expecting the power of
spiritual exposition, which was wont to abound to me in this above all my
other services; but, to my astonishment, I had no thought in my heart, nor
word upon my lips, and felt it was all I could do to keep on reading.
About the sixth verse my words began to be indistinct in the sound. I
could not strike them shrill and full out; they fell short of my usual
utterance all I could do. My eye became dim, and the words of the book
looked hazy. Then my head began to swim, and my heart to become faint; and
I laid hold on the pulpit-sides, and looked wist
Page 500
500
VICTORY OVER THE BODY. fully about, wondering what was to befall me. But
the most painful symptom of all was that I felt it a great effort to draw
my breath. At this moment, when the disease was come to a crisis, and all
nature was sinking down within me, I had only one feeling, for the honor
of Jesus, my Lord and Master, that he should be put to shame through my
unbelief, and that I should fall before the enemy in the place of
testimony and in the sight of all the people. One thought, one prayer,
shot: across my spirit, which was this:' Surely Thou, oh Jesus, art
stronger in my spirit than Satan is in my flesh!' That instant a cold
sweat, chill as the hand of death, broke out all over my body, and stood
in large drops upon my forehead and hands. From that moment I seemed to be
strengthened. My reading, which had not been interrupted by all this,
though strongly affected so as to be sensible to all present, proceeded
more easily to the end of the chapter, but all without my being able to
add one word of exposition. Nevertheless, after the singing a few stanzas
of a Psalm, I undertook to preach on the last verse of the 3d chapter of
John's Gospel, which came in order. According to my custom I had
premeditated nothing, and, as hath been said, while reading the chapter,
found myself utterly incapable of originating any thing. But I knew the
Master whom I serve, and set: out on His charges. Slowly and with great
weakness the words dropped from me, and I was ill able to indite sentences
or bind them into regular discourse; but I gave myself to the Spirit, and
went forward. I had not proceeded many minutes until the Holy Ghost, in
one of the prophets, burst in upon my discourse, speaking with tongues and
prophesying. This brought me rest and refreshing, and some of the words
were made to me spirit and life, so that I resumed with fresh strength,
but still as a dead man both in respect of body and of mind, alive in
respect of the Spirit. I continued my discourse for about an hour with
more unction, as it appeared to myself and all who spake of it, than I had
ever preached before. After the service I walked home and conversed with
my friends, and took a little simple food, expecting to strengthen my body
for my evening duty by eating heartily at dinner. But God was resolved
that for this day the glory of my strength should stand only in Him; for I
was able to eat little or nothing, yet had more power given me in
preaching to about two hundred poor people in a crowded schoolroom than I
ever remember to have had. And next morning I rose to my duty before the
sun, and was enabled to go forward with renewed strength unto this
hour.:For all which, let the glory be given to Jehovah by His name-' I am
the Lord God which healeth thee.' EIDWD. IRVING." The perfect simplicity
of this narrative may, perhaps, bring a smile upon some faces; but I can
not pretend to offer any excuses for a man who felt the everlasting arms
always under him, and recognized no dull intervening world between himself
and his God. The occurrence thus described evidently took place before his
expulsion from Regent Square, and at a time when men's minds were highly
strung, and as delicate to deal with as the
Page 501
A
REMARKABLE PASSAGE. 501 wavering bands of an army in the first thrill of
panic, which the merest stumble of the leader might throw into mad rout
and destruction. Perhaps, the steadfast, pallid figure, holding by the
sides of the pulpit, and maintaining its Christian -sovereignty over the
body and its pangs, did more than much philosophy to strengthen the hearts
of the watching multitude against that panic which is the best aid of
pestilence. Notwithstanding Irving's; declaration that, according to his
custom, he had premeditated nothing, he had by no means givpen up the
composition of sermons; but still, and to the end of his days, continued
to dictate to the writing of here and there a joyful amanuensis, honored
to feel: her female pen the medium of recording his- high thoughts and
burning exhortations. Nor does it appear that the "falling off," which is
so commonly alleged against him at this agitated period of his life, was
in any respect more true than suppositions framed upon general probability
generally are. On the contrary, Mr. Hamilton, who, deeply affectionate as
he was, would not perhaps have been sorry could he have seen a momentary
feebleness visible -in the brother whose convictions carried him into
paths so strange and dangerous, could not say that the bewilderment of the
manifestations, or the undue'aith with which Irving regarded them, had any
effect upon the force and fullness of his preaching. ":His ministrations
in the pulpit," wrote this trusty witness, dating the 4th of May, "have
for some time past been extremely powerful, and I believe instrumental in
winning many souls to Christ." Certainly his few printed productions of
this period give little sign of any decay of intellect. One of these,
published in the Morning Watch of March, 1832, entitled, A Judgment upon
the Decisions of the late General Assembly, contains a very remarkable
passage in reference to the future fate of the Church of Scotland, which,
uttered without any prophetic pomp, has verified itself more absolutely
than any of the professedly inspired: predictions to which Irving himself
gave such undoubting heed: "That the General Assembly, Synods,
Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions, with all the other furniture of the
Church, are about, lice the veil of the temple, to be rent in twain, or to
be left, like the withered fig-tree, fruitless and barren, I firmly
believe, and yet would do all I could to retard it," he says; regarding
steadfastly, not any premonition of a rising controversy about
Church'government, nor even the restless, absolute spirit entering into a
wild struggle with all the conditions of nature, which took
Page 502
502 THE
SICK CHILD. so readily to deposition and anathema, but, what to his intent
eyes was a thousand times more significant, the practical denial of the
love of the Father and the work of the Son, which he believed the Church
of Scotland, to be guilty of. After the event which has left so deep a
scar upon the heart of Scotland, it is startling to meet with such words.
The Morning Watch, notwithstanding its dignity as a Quarterly Review, and
its oft-repeated declaration that the majority of its readers were members
of the English Church, occupied itself, throughout those exciting months,
in the most singular manner, with the ecclesiastical prosecution, which
only the great fame of Irving, and the remarkable character of the
spiritual question involved, prevented from being a merely local and
individual matter. Though a periodical of the highest class and most
recondite pretensions, it palpi~tated with every change in the fortunes of
the Regent Square Church, and was as truly the organ of that expelled
band, large as a congregation, but small as a community, which followed
Irving, as its adversary the Record was the organ of English Evangelicism;
and not only abounded in discussions and expositions of the miraculous
gifts and cures, and of the doctrines specially identified with Irving,
but went so much farther as to represent "lAir, Irving's Church as THE
Sign of the Times," and to discuss the position of the body in its
temporary and disagreeable refuige as " The Ar7c'of God in the Temple of
Dagon." Perhaps the presence in the new community of a man so rich, so
determined, so swift, and self-acting as Henry Drummond, sparing no cost,
either of money or labor ?a potentate considerable enough to have an
"organ" in his own right ?goes far to explain the possession, by a single
Church, of a representative so magnificent as a Quarterly Review. I am not
informed as to the precise period when Irving removed his family into the
house in Newman Street, which included under the same roof the large
picture-gallery henceforward to form the meeting-place of his Church; but,
before going on to that, there occurs another of those anecdotes which his
friends have hoarded up in their memories, and tell with tears and smiles.
When he went for the first time to see this house, some time elapsed
before he could get admission; and when, at last, the man who was in
charge of the place opened: the door, he apologized for the delay, saying
that he had a child dying up stairs. "Then, before we do any thing else,"
said Irving, on the threshold of
Page 503
INVITATION TO THE KIRKCALDY RELATIVES. 503 the much-desired building which
might liberate him from Robert Owen and Gray's Inn Road, "let us go and
pray that it may be healed." He followed the astonished and sorrowful
custodian of the empty house up through the echoing staircase to the attip
where the little sick-bed was, and, kneeling down, poured out his soul for
the child, over whose feeble head he no doubt pronounced that blessing
which dropped from his tender lips upon all little children. Then he
returned to the business which had brought him there, and examined the
extent and capabilities of the place. Some time after, he returned again
with the architect who was to superintend the alterations, and, as soon as
the door was opened, asked, How was the child? The father answered with
joy that it was now recovering. "Then, before we do any thing else, let us
go and give thanks," said the Christian priest. Hearing of such daily
incidents, natural accompaniments of that full life, one can not wonder at
the exclamation which bursts from the troubled bosom of his sister
Elizabeth when, in a passion of mingled doubt and grief, she says, "There
are moments when I feel as if God had deserted the'Church altogether; for
if He is not in the midst of Mr. Irving's family and flock, where is God
to be found?" Surely, amid all clouds of human imperfection, the light of
His countenance fell fair upon that echoing empty house where His faithful
servant gave the thanks of a prince and poet for the little life of the
poor housekeeper's child. Most probably that eventful summer passed
without much intercourse between the household which was in direct
opposition to all its kindred, and the kind but grieved relations who
withstood the new faith; for in August, Mrs. Irving addressed a beseeching
woman's letter, tender and importunate, evidently written out of the
yearning of her heart, to her father and mother, begging them to -come to
visit her, and evidently not without a hope that, if they did but see and
hear the " work" which was going on, they would be persuaded of its:
truth. When she had made her petition, she seems to have transferred the
letter to Irving, who, more prescient of all the:difficulties involved,
yet tender of his Isabella's desire, adds to the anxious conciliatory
letter the following sentences: " If your hearts draw you to grant this,
the request of my dear Isabella and myself, let not the expense be any
consideration, for we never were so rich since we began house-keeping....i
And if you should not wish to abide in our house by reason of the
contrariety
Page 504
504
PROSPERED BY THE LORD. of our faith in so essential a point as the voice
of the Good Shepherd, which is more spoke under our roof than in any other
place, you have our dear brother Mr. Hamilton's house to go to, who will
be too glad to receive you. For my own part, I could not wish you to abide
in that holy presence and stand in doubt of His identity, much less speak
against His divinity, and worse than all, speak of the Holy Ghost as a
spirit of delusion.... You would certainly be continually exposed to great
trials in this way, and might be brought under heinous sin; but God might
be pleased to give you to acknowledge His truth. Do as seemeth best to
you, being guided by the Lord in all things. My only comfort is that the
people know not what they have spoken against; were it otherwise, I would
be ready to perish at the thought of the despite which hath been done to
the Spirit of grace. The Gospel soundeth out through the whole city from
my Church. I should suppose there are not fewer than thirty or forty who
now preach in the streets, every one of them as zealous, and many of them
more bold than I am; and for myself, the Lord's work by me, both within my
church and among the people, prospers above all former times. Every two
months there are added to the Church nearly fifty souls. If you knew it,
you have great ground of thanksgiving on our account. I believe the Lord
is doing a work in my Church wherein the whole world shall have reason to
rejoice. "Your affectionate and faithful children, E. & I. IRVING." The
parents naturally did not come to complicate all his difficulties; but
another communication passed between them a month later, when Irving
intimated the birth of another son, and also that" the Lord prospers us
otherwise very much. He hath provided us with a house and church under one
roof, where I believe the Lord will work blessings manifold, not only to
this city and nation, but to the whole world, because He is gracious, and
the time to visit His Church is come, and we were the most despised among
the thousands of Israel." With such anticipations, accordingly, he entered
into possession of the new church; and now, indeed, the ancient, austere
usages of the Church of Scotland began to yield to the presence of that
gradually rising tide of spiritual influence within. Those utterances,
which at first had only conveyed exhortations and warnings to the people
of God, had, in the hands of Baxter, taken an entirely different and
much.more authoritative character; up to his time, the prophets, of whom
the majority were women, seem only to have given stray gleams of
edification, encouragement, and instruction to the believing assembly.
Baxter, on the contrary, carried matters with a high hand; he not only
interpreted prophecy, but uttered predictions; he fixed the day and the
year when the " rapture of the saints" was to take place, in opposition
Page 505
DEVELOPMENT. 505 to the sentiments of many of the " gifted;" and if he did
not positively assert his own call to be an apostle, at least intimated it
with more or less distinctness. Nor was this all; he also declared in "
the power" that the Church no longer retained the privilege of ordaining,
and that all spiritual offices were henceforth to be filled by the gifted,
or by those specially called, through the gifted, by the Spirit of God.
Before the opening of the Newman Street Church, it is true, the prophet
himself had published the wonderful narrative, in which he repeated the
predictions which came from his own lips, and, appealing to the whole
world whether they had been fulfilled, proclaimed them a delusion. But the
principle which he had introduced did not fall to the ground, nor did his
brother prophets cease to believe in his prophecies. And so it came to
pass, that those utterances which had only been expository and exhortative
before Baxter's time, after his revelation changed their nature, and,
gradually mingling details of Church ceremonies and ordinances with their
previous devotional and hortatory character, became ere long the oracles
of the community, fluctuating sometimes in gusts of painful uncertainty
when one prophet rebuked the utterances of another, and reversed his
directions, or when conclusions too summary were drawn which had
inevitably to be departed from. This new development introduced, instead
of the steady certainty of an established law, the unsettled and variable
condition naturally resulting from dependence upon a mysterious spiritual
authority, which might at any time command an entire change in their
proceedings, and was, besides, liable to be intruded upon by equally
mysterious, diabolical agencies, which could with difficulty be
distinguished from the real influence of the Spirit. When the principle of
spiritual ordination was once established, this condition of painful
change and fluctuation became inevitable. If it was indeed the Spirit of
God which declared the old authority of the Church to be superseded, such
an intimation was reasonably to be supposed the preface of spiritual
action; and if a power other than the Spirit of God, still more certain
was the fruit to be borne by a suggestion which gave scope to every
burning imagination and enthusiast heart. New names, new offices, a
changed order of worship came in gradual succession; when the greater
matters were momentarily settled, the minutest details came in for their
share; and the very details became important when it was believed that God
Himself directed and suggested every arrangement of the new sanctuary.
Page 506
506
IRVING ANNOUNCES CERTAIN CHANGES. I do not attempt to follow the gradual
development of the "Catholic Apostolic Church." I could not do so without
shocking the holiest feelings of some of the most excellent people I know,
to whom I am indebted for much courtesy and no small assistance. They are
very well able to set forth and defend their own faith, and it would be
ill my part to cast the faintest shade either of ridicule or of odium upon
it. I only pause to point out the moment when the old order of things
began to break up and disappear, leaving only here and there some pathetic
shred of ancient habitude, such as the use of the Scotch Psalms, to show
where the former landmarks had been. In the excitement of the new system
thus gradually forming, in the proclamation of apostles about to be
consecrated, and prophets about to be sent forth, and a new tabernacle of
testimony against the world lying in wickedness to be established in that
wilderness-a living tabernacle, every office-bearer of which was intended
by God to stand in the place of some one of the symbolical material parts
of Moses' tabernacle- it would have been marvelous indeed had the old
forms of Scottish worship remained intact amid so many convulsions. In a
sermon preached in Gray's Inn Road just before entering the new church,
Irving thus intimated one or two of the changes purposed: "Because I have
been sore hindered by the presence of the multitude of strangers and
gazers who have profaned the Lord's house, and have insulted me and do
insult me daily, and not me only, but the Lord Jesus, it is my purpose, by
God's grace, when we meet together again, that the Church shall meet
together alone one full hour before the admission of the people, in order
that the Church may know what are the duties of the Church, and that we
may together confess our sils before the Lord, and humble ourselves before
the Lord, and bow ourselves down; and that I may speak to you in the
confidence of a pastor, that I may tell you more plainly than in the
presence of strangers what be our faults, what be our shortcomings, in
order that we may all be before the Lord, to be rebuked of Him
accordingly. Then, when the service of the Church hath thus been gone
about, it is my purpose that the doors be opened, and all whom the Lord
shall please to send shall come in, that we may pray for them and minister
the word of the Gospel unto them..... I hope, at no great distance of time
also, that we shall find it both convenient and desirable to eat the
Lord's Supper together, as a Church, every Lord's day. But, as I said
before, I do not wish to press this heavily, nor to enforce any thing, but
that by the gentle leading of the Spirit of God the Church may be led into
it." The new Church itself bore outward evidence of the change.
Page 507
EXAMPLE
OF THE UTTERANCES. 507, In a second pamphlet, entitled "Irvingism," much
less rare and curious than his "Narrative," and published a year or two
later, in which Mr. Baxter appears calmed down out of his prophetic
passion into the ordinary tone of religious controversy, he describes the
place as follows: "The room adopted for their meetings was fitted up in
the usual style of pews and galleries, as in a church; instead of a
pulpit, however, there was constructed at the upper end of the church a
raised platform, capable of containing perhaps fifty persons. In the
ascent to this platform are steps; on the front of the platform are seven
seats; the middle seat is that of the angel; the three on each side of the
angel are elders. Below them, on the steps, and in a parallel line, are
seven other seats belonging to the prophets, the middle seat being
allotted to Mr. Taplin as the chief of the prophets. Still lower in a
parallel line are seven other seats appropriated to the deacons, the
middle seat being occupied by the chief deacon. This threefold cord of a
sevenfold ministry was adopted under direction of the utterance. The angel
ordered the service, and the preaching and expounding was generally by the
elders in order, the prophets speaking as utterance came upon them." The
opening services, however, in this church seem to have been conducted
exclusively by Irving, whose sermon, interrupted now and then by a
manfzjestation, I have now before me. It was on Wednesday evening, the
24th of October, that this service was held; and the manifestations are
reported as they occurred. As an example of these utterances I quote them
at length. In the course of his exposition of the 1st chapter of the First
Book of Samuel, Irving mentions the Church as barren -" conceiving, but
not having brought forth," upon which the ecstatic voice interposes, "Oh,
but she shall be firuitful; oh! oh! oh! she shall replenish the earth! Oh!
oh! she shall replenish the earth and subdue it-and subdue it!" A little
farther on, another, less apposite to the subject of the discourse, breaks
in as follows: " Oh, you do grieve the Spirit-you do grieve the Spirit!
Oh, the body of Jesus is to be sorrowful in spirit! You are to cry to your
Father-to cry, to cry in the bitterness of your souls! Oh, it is a
mourning, a mourning, a mourning before the Lord-a sighing and crying unto
the Lord because of the desolations of Zion-because of the desolations of
Zion-because of the desolations of Zion!" The sermon is on Reconciliation
to God, and is interrupted by
Page 508
508
MANIFESTATIONS. the following "manifestations," in some cases with only a
few sentences of the discourse, and in the first two with only a few words
between. Irving is exhorting his hearers to believe that " there is
salvation in Christ for every one of you," when the utterance bursts forth
by the voice of Mr. Drummond, " Ah! shut Him not out-shut not out you
Savior! Ah! you are proud of your dignity! Ah! truly your power is
fearful! Ah! you have a power of resisting your God-you have a power of
resisting your salvation! Ah! you are not straitened in your Father; you
are straitened in yourselves! Oh, receive Him now! The day is almost
closed. Ah! enter now! Delay not-delay not, delay not. Ah! wherefore stand
you back?" Here Irving resumes: " Shut not the Lord out, the spirit of the
Lord speaking in his servants," when he is immediately interrupted again:
"Oh, I have set before thee ?oh, I have set before thee an open door; Oh,
let no man shut it-oh, let no man shut it!" And the following occur at
longer intervals, the first uttered by a lady: " Ah! will ye despise ?ah!
will ye despise the blood of Jesus? Will ye pass by the cross, the cross
of Jesus! Oh! oh! oh! will ye crucify the Lord of glory? will ye put Him
to an open shame? He died, He died, He died for you-He died for you!
Believe ye, believe ye the Lamb of God! Oh, He was slain, He was slain,
and He hath redeemed you-He hath redeemed you-He hath redeemed you -He
hath redeemed you with His blood! Oh, the blood, the blood, the blood that
speaketh better things than the blood of Abel-which crieth mercy to you
now-mercy to you now! Despise not His love -despise not His love-despise
not His love!" "Oh, grieve Him not! Oh, grieve not your Father! Rest in
His love! Oh, rejoice in your Father's love! Oh, rejoice in the love of
Jesus, in the love of Jesus, oh, for it passeth knowledge! - Oh, the
length, oh, the breadth, oh, the height, oh, the depth of the love of
Jesus! oh, it passeth knowledge! Oh, rejoice in the love of Jesus! Oh,
sinner! for what, for what, what, oh, sinner, what can separate, separate,
separate from the love of- Jesus? Oh, nothing, nothing! Oh, none can pluck
you out of His hands! Oh, none shall be able to pluck you out of your
Father's hand!" Irving then, the sermon being concluded, intimates that
the church is free throughout, no pew letting being permitted-thus
forestalling, as in various other respects, the anxious endeavors of a
most important part of the English Church-that it is to be open ten times
a week for public worship, besides four other services to which only
members of the Church are admitted, "with such de
Page 509
CHARACTER OF THE MANIFESTATIONS. 509 vout persons as they may introduce by
tickets," all others being excluded except to theporch of the church. This
intimation is scarcely completed when Mr. Drummond's voice again breaks
forth: "Ah! be ye warned! be ye warned! Ye have been warned. The Lord hath
prepared for you a table, but it is a table in the presence of your
enemies. Ah! look you well to it! The city shall be builded-ah! every jot,
every piece of the edifice. Be faithful each under his load-each under his
load; but see that ye build with one hand, and with a weapon in the other.
Look to it-look to it. Ye have been warned. Ah! Sanballat, Sanballat,
Sanballat; the Horonite, the Moabite, the Ammonite! Ah! confederate,
confederate, confederate with the Horonite! Ahll! look ye to it, look ye
to it!" The benediction concluded the service. Thus concluded this
singular service. The reader will perceive that there is actually nothing
in those exclamations to which the most orthodox believer could object,
but will most probably wonder, as I confess I can not help doing, why it
should have been necessary to interrupt the voice of the preacher for
utterances which convey so little, and which, to read them in common print
and daylight, are not more, but less profound and instructive than the
strain of the discourse which pauses to give them place; many of the
services, however, are much less frequently interruptedd, and some not at
all. In one of them occurs a curious instance of the expanded ritual
grafted upon the old usage, in a series of short addresses spoken to each
individual communicant by name, with which Irving accompanied the
distribution of the " tokens," and in which every man and woman of all
those unknown appellations receives a curious identity in all the various
particulars of poverty and prosperity, age and youth. Little farther of
Irving's personal history appears in this eventful and exciting year. Amid
all its agitation, one can fancy a certain repose lighting upon him after
the fiery trial with which it began. He was forsaken of his friends, yet
love still surrounded him; he had suffered injustice, despite, and loss,
but the immediate pangs were over. Already he had been promised the
mission of a great prophet to his dear native country, and solace was in
the thought; and, though Baxter had fallen, there were other prophets
standing close around him, who renewed and held up to the continued hope
of the Church those predictions which they believed Baxter to have too
rashly interpreted, too suddenly desired fruition of-and the sky before
the separated community was still bright with glorious hopes.
Page 510
510
ANOTHER ASSAULT. This momentary calm was, however, once more broken in
October by warnings of renewed trouble. The Church of Scotland was in no
manner called upon to interfere. The scene of his labors was beyond her
jurisdiction, and he seems to have had no immediate intention of visiting
Scotland, or bringing himself within the reach of her anathema. But
perhaps it was impossible that any merely human corporation of men,
actuated by no greater self-control than their fellows, could have passed
over the solemn and indignant judgment pronounced upon their proceedings
by Irving in the Morning Watch without using such means of reprisal as
were in their power. The General Assembly of 1831 had issued orders to any
Presbytery which might find him ministering within their bounds to " take
action" against him for his heretical views; but, stimulated by assault,
it had quickened its movements, and by means of its commission, a kind of
representative committee, had given orders to the Presbytery which
ordained Irving to proceed at once to his trial. The Presbytery of Annan
accordingly bestirred themselves. They wrote to him demanding whether he
was the author of three tracts which they specified. Under the
circumstances, his answer was purely voluntar,; but, with his usual
candor, he replied at once, with full avowal of the fact, and vehement
condemnation of the General Assembly, with which he declared himself able
henceforth "to make no relationship but that of open and avowed enmity."
The expressions he used on this occasion were almost violent, his vexed
spirit, to which no rest was permitted, bursting forth in words more
suitable to an Ezekiel than to a man unjustified by inspiration. In his
view, the highest court of the Church of Scotland had rejected God in all
the three-fold character of His revelation -in the love of the Father, the
humanity of the Son, and the operations of the Holy Ghost; and his heart
burned with a solemn and lofty indignation, all the more intense for the
love and reverence with which he had formerly regarded the Church of his
fathers. With this renewed thunderbolt hanging over him he went through
the rest of the year. "Ve are all well, and the Lord forbeareth greatly
with such unworthy creatures, and aboundeth in love to us for Christ's
sake," are the words with which he coneludes a letter in December. A
certain exhaustion, yet calm of heart, breathes out of the words. Scarcely
a man of all those with whom he had been used to take counsel but had
fallen aloof,
Page 511
GRADUAL
DEVELOPMENT. 511 and stood afar off, disapproving, perhaps condemning,
and, what was a still harder trial to Irving, calling that which to him
was the work of the Holy Ghost a delusion. But his heart was worn out with
much suffering; and, in the interval of conflict, a certain tranquillity,
half of weariness, enveloped his troubled life.
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