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CHAPTER XVIII
1833.
Inquiries of Mr. Campbell.
THE
course of events went on in natural development after the separation of
Irving and his little community. To a large extent secluded within
themselves, they carried out their newly-established principles, and
"'waited upon the Lord" as perhaps no other community of modern days has
ever dreamed of doing, guiding themselves and their ordinances implicitly
by the teaching of the oracles in the midst of them. In this career of
daily increasing isolation, Irving had not only lost the support of his
immediate personal friends in London, but also of those much-loved
brethren in faith, in whose defense he had lifted his mighty voice, and
for whom he had denounced the Church of Scotland. Mr. Scott, though
entertaining the full conviction that miraculous gifts were part of the
inheritance of Christians, and after doing much to perfect that belief in
Irving's own mind, as well as in those of'the first ecstatic speakers, had
totally refused his sanction to the present utterances; and the two
friends were now separated, to drift farther and farther apart through all
imaginable degrees of unlikeness. Mr. Campbell, for whose distinctive
views Irving had stood forth so warmly, and whom he had embraced with all
the
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512 MR.
CAMPBELL'S INQUIRIES.-IRVING'S REPLY. overflowing sympathy and love of his
heart, was equally unable to perceive any evidences of Divine inspiration.
An impression seems to have prevailed, if not in Irving's mind, at least
among several members of his community, that both these gentlemen would
naturally fall into their ranks, and add strength and stability to the new
Church. I have in my possession notes of a correspondence carried on some
time later between Mr, Campbell and some members of the Newman Street
Church, in which the Scotch minister had to hold his ground against two
most acute and powerful opponents-one of whom was Henry Drummond,
brilliant and incisive in controversy as in most other things-and to
defend and justify himself for not joining them. To lose the sympathy of
these special brethren was very grievous to Irving; and he seized the
opportunity of explaining the ground of his faith and that of his people
in answer to some questions which Mr. Campbell very early in this year
addressed to Mr. David Ker, one of the deacons in Newman Street, and a
member of a wellknown family in Greenock, in the immediate neighborhood of
which the "gifts" had first displayed themselves. This letter, which I
quote, shows that Irving's own faith had needed very absolute props to
support it, and that he had not proceeded so far upon his martyr-path
without such trial of doubts and misgivings as could only be quenched by a
confidence in his own sincerity and utter trust in God's promise possible
to very few men under any circumstances. Once more he reiterated with
sorrowful constancy his certain conviction that to His children, when they
asked for bread, God would not give a stone. " 14 Newman Street, February
22, 1833. " MIY DEAR BROTHER,-When our dear David Ker asked me counsel
concerning the answering of the questions in your letter touching the
ground of faith in spiritual utterance, I deemed it best to take the
matter in hand for him altogether, and do now hope to deliver the mind of
God to you in this matter. The view of the dear brethren in Port-Glasgow,*
to wit, the answer of the spirit in the hearer, is the ground of belief in
any word spoken by any man or by any spirit; but it is only the basis or
ground thereof, and by no means resolves the question in hand. There is a
confidence in God which goes far beyond the answer of the spirit, and
enables us to walk in the darkness as well as in the light; for His
footsteps are not known. This confidence pertaineth to him that is of a
pure heart and single eye, and conscious of integrity, and clearness in
His sight. I believe that this sustained our Lord in the crooked paths
wherein God led him, and that it was, and is, and ever will be, the main,
yea, the only W* Wrhere the "manifestations" first took place: see ante,
p. 381.
Page 513
THE
FOUNTAIN OF SWEET WATERS. 513 evidence by which the prophet, having the
word of God coming to him, shall know it is the word of God, and as such
speak it; by which also the hearer shall know it is the word of God, and
as such hear it. It is true that God leadeth men into temptation, as He
did Abraham, and then it is their part to obey implicitly the word of the
Lord, and the Lord will bring them out of the temptation to His own glory
and to their own good. I declare, for myself and for my Church, that this
is almost our entire safety, to wit, confidence that our God will take
care of us; for we are not a reasoning people, but we seek to be, and I
believe are, the servants of God. Moreover, we have great faith in the
stability of an ordinance. We look up to the deacons, and the elders, and
the angel of the Church, as standing in the Lord Jesus, and we expect and
desire to see and hear Him in their ministry, and we believe that it will
be to us according to our faith, and we have found it to be so in times
past. But forasmuch as the voice of the Comforter is the highest of all
ordinances in the Church, we steadily believe that the Lord for His own
name, as well as for His own end's sake, will not suffer, without a very
great cause, any breaking in or breaking out therein; and so, when He
openeth the mouth of a brother in power, we expectto hear His voice, and
we are not disappointed, and so our experience increaseth our expectation,
and in this way we proceed and prosper. In respect of signs, we rather
desire them not than desire them at present, until the word of our God
shall have delivered us from our carnal-mindedness, and from following
sight instead of faith. When the Lord permitted the enemy to tempt us,
seeing our simplicity, He himself delivered us from the temptation, and we
learned the more to trust Him and to distrust ourselves. And, oh brother,
the fountain which is opened having yielded us nothing but sweet waters,
it would be so ungrateful for us to do any thing but rejoice at it, that I
feel even this letter to be a liberty with my God, which, save for a
brother's satisfaction, I would not have ventured to take. There are many
things now that I could say, but I refrain lest I should encourage a
temptation in you to speculate about holy things, and so lead you into a
snare. I pray God to keep you in the faith of Him, in darkness as in
light, and no less when in light than in darkness. Farewell. " Your
faithful brother, EDwARD IRVING." Another letter of a similar character
was addressed a few months later to Alan Ker, of Greenock, a man who, long
confined to a sick-room, and at all times in the most precarious health,
seems to have secured always the love, and often the reverential regard of
those who knew him. "London, April 30, 1833. " MY DEIAR BROTHER,-Your
brother gave me, after our worship on the Lord's day, a letter of yours to
read, which I returned to him on Monday morning after our public prayers,
with little or no comment, and with no purpose of writing to you myself,
nor does he know that I am now about to write; but, having a great love to
you and to your father's house, and admiring the brotherly love which K
K~6
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014
LETTER TO ALAN KER. reigneth among you, and being well acquainted with the
ground whereon you and others are stumbling, and not going forward with us
into the glorious city, I take heart of loving-kindness to write to you,
my brother, and do what I can' to help you forward. "The word of the Lord,
my Scottish brethren, since Adam fell, hath never been a copy of itself,
but always a new growth and form of the same good purpose which the Father
purposed in Himself before the world was, and revealeth in His dear Son
through the Church, which is the ftillness of Him who filleth all in
all.... And, thou, 0 Alan, who lookest from thy sick-chamber with pious
delight upon the works of thy Creator, dost not expect the green blade
which now pierces the ground to continue in its beautiful verdure, but to
shoot out into the stalk and the ear, and the full corn in the ear. But
you will not permit such variety of forms in the growth of the works of
the Lord, but go to the apostolical writings and say,' It must be this
over again,' wherein ye grieve God, not walking by faith, but by sight. Ye
see the historical notices there written, and ye say,' Now we will guide
our own steps and keep our own way.' Your own steps you may guide; but
God's steps are not known. Your own way you may find, but God's by
searching you can not find. Think ye that Abraham took test of God by his
dealings with Noah-? or M[oses by Abraham? or the apostles, at Pentecost,
by the schools of the prophets in Bethel or in Gilgal? If we have the word
of the Lord, we have the word of the. Lord and nothing else, and the word
of the Lord shall shape the work of the Lord, and not thou or I, nay, not
Paul, nor Peter, nor Moses, but He of whose fullness they all
received-Jesus the Word made flesh, who sitteth in the heavens, and
speaketh in the midst of us, and of you also, brethren beloved of the
Lord.... Dear Alan, if there were any thing spoken or done among us which
is meant or intended to abrogate or weaken one jot or tittle of the Law or
the Prophets, let it be anathema! But it is not so; there is no word in
Scripture to say that an apostle should have seen the Lord. Read again;
brother. When thou showest it me written that no one is an apostle who has
not seen the Lord, I will say that John Cardale is not an apostle,
although the spirit that speaketh here and in all other parts were to say
that he was ten thousand times. Neither, brother, is it said in Scripture
that an apostle is to be tried by signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds,
although these belong to an apostle, and an evangelist, and an elder, and
to thee also, if thou hast faith; for these signs shall follow them that
believe; and art thou not a believer, oh brother, because the signs in
thee have not been manifested?... Why stand ye afar off? Come to the help
of the Lord against the mighty, lest the curse of Meroz come upon you;
for, brother, it is no question of logic, but the losing or gaining of a
crown. "Next, ye are envious of me; ye think that I am usurping it in the.
house of God, and ye brook not that an apostle should be under me. The
apostle is over the angel of the Church, and the angel of the Church is
over the apostle: ye Scottish people, why will ye attempt spiritual things
with carnal reason? I give ye forth another contradiction to call heresy,
The angel of the Church is over the
Page 515
GOD'S
FOOTSTEPS ARE NOT KNOWN. 515 apostle, and the apostle is over the angel of
the Church.'First apostles,' etc.; and then,' Thou hast proved them that
say they are apostles, and hast found them liars.' Now, doth Jesus write
His epistles to the apostles of the Churches, or to the angels of the
Churches? But by whom writeth He them? Is it not by an apostle? So receive
I, through an apostle, my instructions; and having received them, the
apostle himself is the first man that must bow to them, and I will take
good care that he doth so, lest he should exalt himself to the seat of our
common Master, who alone is complete within Himself, and all His
office-bearers are worthless worms, useless, profitless-grievous
offenders, ever offending, whom He maketh by His grace and power ever
worthy, obedient, and offenseless. Oh, children, I am broken in my heart
daily with your slowness of faith! "' Finally, my dear brother, if you ask
what it is that we know our Lord by, I answer by the mercy, the grace, the
truth, the holiness, the righteous judgments which.... in these times and
in all times belong to Him alone.... we know it is Jehovah, and none but
He, who through the mouth of a weak and sinful prophet, through the hand
of a weak and sinful apostle, hath wrought the work of separating a Church
out of this corner of Babylon.. But in respect of His way, it is in the
dark waters, and of His footsteps, they are not known; only this know we,
that we have committed our way unto the Lord, and that we are seeking
to'depart from our own ways; for our ways are not His ways, nor our
thoughts His thoughts; therefore, holy brethren, partakers ofthe heavenly
calling, cease ye betimes from suspicion and from judging, for otherwise
ye shall not be guiltless, and the Lord is stronger than you; but abide in
love to them that love you, and have been beholden to you for many prayers
and much fellowship, and would now repay you with a share of whatever
grace, understanding, and wisdom the Lord giveth unto us.... To Him who is
the life and the head, and the Lord sovereign and paramount, whom we serve
in pureness of heart and mind, through the cleansing of His blood and
effectual ministry of His Spirit, be all honor and' glory forever. Amen.'
Your faithful servant, for the Lord's, sake, " EDWARD IRVING." The
singular junction in these letters of the ruling " Angel" of the
Church,retaining all his natural influence and sway, who " will take good
care" that the apostle does bow to his authority, with the simple and
absolute believer, confident that he is serving God in utter sincerity,
and that God will not deceive him, nor suffer him to be deceived in his
unbounded trust, is very remarkable. In this lies the clew which many of
Irving's critics have sought in vain, and which some have imagined
themselves able to trace to motives which appear in no other manifestation
of his heroic and simple soul. While one portion of his friends are
affectionately lamenting the blind faith with which he delivers over his
understanding to the guidance of the "gifted," and another are
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516
IRVING'S MODE OF EXPLAINING HIMSELF. impatiently fretting over the
credulity which to their calm sense is inconceivable, this is the attitude
in which the object of so many animadversions stands. Vulgar voices
outside assail him, the soul of honor, with imputations of imposture and
religious fraud; friends, more cruel, suggest sometimes a hectic
inclination toward the marvelous-sometimes the half-conscious desire of
attracting back again the fashionable crowds of early days. Singularly
unlike all these representations he here presents himself. Years before,
he had called his brother with him from the Kirkcaldy manse-parlor to join
in his- prayers for a dyingman, in the sublime confidence that "what two
of you shall agree together to ask, it shall be done unto them of my
Father." Years have not changed his confidence in that unchanging God. He
stands gazing with eyes abstracted upon the skies which that burning gaze
can all but pierce; he has put his Master to His word; and, having done
so, the servant of God can not descend from that mount of prayer to the
cool criticism of other men. First in the matter to a mind at all times so
exalted, and to which all nature was miraculous, was that Lord to whom he
had appealed; as he explains himself from those heights of perpetual
prayer, a certain impatience, strangely like the impatience with which the
watchers below contemplate him in his incomprehensible simplicity,
breathes from his impassioned words: "C I am broken in my heart daily with
your slowness of faith;" and his explanation is, if any thing, more
incomprehensible than his acts to men who, lost in all the complications
of a world growing old, can only gaze amazed at that primitive
standing-ground on which, as if he had been born in the days of Moses or
Abraham, this man of the nineteenth century has found footing. How any man
dares believe that he himself is utterly sincere in his asking, and sure
of an answer-how any man ventures openly to assume for himself that
position to which the Bible calls every man-and how, dismissing all
farther question, he can lift his abstracted ear, and give his rapt soul
to the infallible reply, is a mystery which nobody can penetrate. Such a
position devout men may attain to at the supreme and secret moments of
individual life. I can no more explain or comprehend that ineffable
primitive elevation than could Irving's curious observers, who saw him
standing forth in it, a sign and wonder to the world. But there he did
stand absolute, in a primitive heroic faith. And, granting this miraculous
postulate, there is, in every thing
Page 517
HIS
REASONABLENESS. 517 Irving does thereafter, a certain lofty reasonableness
which does but still more and more bewilder the minds of his auditors. The
region into which he had entered appeared so entirely one beyond reason,
that the outside observers expected to find nothing that was not wild and
irregular, according to all the traditions of enthusiasm and spiritual
excitement, there. But Irving, with his exalted heart, to which no miracle
seems too wonderful, keeps, in the midst of all that wild agitation, the
limits of God's Word and man's nature in utter distinction from such a
rash enthusiast as the prophet Baxter, whom even at the height of his
inspiration the pastor continually interposes to calm and moderate. When
the latter fancies that he has been commanded by God to abandon his family
and profession, to appear before the king in "testimony," and to suffer
the pains of martyrdom, Irving comes in upon his heated visions with the
suggestion that " if a man provide not for those of his own house he is
worse than.an infidel," proving his own declaration, that if in any thing
the utterances controverted Scripture, he was content that they should "be
anathema." Throughout his pleadings before the Presbytery of London, and
in the letters I have just quoted, nothing seems to me so remarkable as
this reasonableness, only allowing the truth of the first grand assumption
that the "work" was the work of God. But this reason, governing the
actions of a man on such a sublimated level of existence, does only
perplex and confuse the more those curious, anxious, interested
spectators, who might have ventured to hope it was a merely temporary
delusion had every thing about it been equally wild and irregular, but who
were struck dumb by this visionary application to such a matter of those
rules of trial and experiment common, in the ordinary affairs of life, to
all sane and vigorous minds. The year was little more than begun when
Irving had again to enter into direct conflict with his former brethren.
The question was changed as well as the scene. Before the hasty and
reckless Presbytery of London he had defended himself against the
imputation of having suffered unauthorized persons to speak in his church.
The Presbytery of Annan, who had ordained him, now called him to their bar
to answer the charge: of holding heretical doctrine, viz., the sinfulness
of our Lord's humanity. This doctrine, concerning which Irving, at first,
wist not that there was any controversy, had by this time created a little
controversial literature of its own in the excited theological world-a
literature
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518
FIGHTING IN THE DARK. in which that holy and perfect existence, which both
parties professed to adore, was made the subject of discussions, always
more or less profane, in which both parties forgot, in horror at each
other's statements, the reverence and awe which neither statement had,
till controversy arose, done any thing to impugn. I know nothing more
painful, nor, indeed, in some of its phases, more hideous and revolting,
than the hot contest, preserved in many scattered publications,
fortunately now almost forgotten, which rose over this mysterious and
awful subject. From the trials in the Scotch Church courts where ignorant
witnesses delivered their opinions on " the hypostatical union," to the
revolting physical argument by which some writers of higher pretensions
labored to establish what proportion of its substance a child derived from
its mother, the whole discussion is throughout destructive-so far as any
external influence can be so-of that tender, profound, and adoring
reverence which no man living ever felt more deeply than he who was
accused of aiming at its subversion. I do not believe there was any real
difference whatever between the faith of devout men on the opposite sides
of this question. Those who held, with Irving, that our Lord took the
flesh of man as He found it, and was our true brother, disowned with
horror and indignation the most distant thought that sin ever soiled or
breathed upon that holy flesh; and those who believed Him to have come in
a certain Eden-fiction of humanity, not so much holy as innocent, were,
nevertheless, when off this vexing controversy, as ready as any to claim
the privilege of Christians, that sympathy of the fellow-sufferer-that
tenderest compassion which comes from experiment of all our sorrows and
temptations-with which practically every Christian soul knows its Lord
invested. The men were fighting in the dark with deadly weapons of those
words which confuse and obscure the truth. They were in their hearts at
one, both holding a Head absolute in divine holiness and purity, perfect
in human fellowship and tenderness, but the words were external and
demonstrative, and the hearts could not make themselves audible in any
other than that belligerent human language which does but half express and
half conceal every spiritnal reality. So it came about that the Church: of
Scotland, then so impatient. and absolute, and resolute for identity of
expression as well as agreement of faith, had to enact another scene in
this strange episode of history, and wear with another sharp struggle
Irving's sorrowful and troubled soul.
Page 519
ANNAN
PRESBYTERY. 519 I am in doubt whether it is not ungenerous to specify the
members of this Annan Presbytery, for it is probable that any other
Presbytery in the Church would have come to an exactly similar conclusion.
I may say, however, that the names of these obscure Presbyters will recall
to all who have any local acquaintance with the district no such
recollections as hallow the names of many a humble parish priest, but will
bring many an anecdote of eccentricity, and some of that peculiar clerical
profaneness which is to be found in no other profession to the memories of
those men of Annandale who know the traditions of the last generation. The
one exception to the perfect obscurity and homeliness of this little
clerical group was Dr. Duncan, of Ruithwell, a man of universally
acknowledged:eminence and high character. Of the rest, some were homely
old men, half farmers, half ministers-some of better standing, half
ministers, half country gentlemen, both on a very small scale. Without a
single special qualification for deciding any question which required
clear heads and practiced intelligence, from their moorland manses and
rural cares, they came, with such solemnity as they could muster, to try a
question for which, in primitive times, a solemn council of the whole
Church would have been convened.. Not very long before, Irving himself,
always magnificent and visionary, bent not upon the practicable, but the
right, had pointed out, in the preface to his edition of the Standards of
the Church of Scotland, the necessity for a grand Catholic Council, such
as that of Nicaea, to consider and settle the momentous matters which then
divided the Reformed Churches. He had also appealed, in still earlier
days, with earnest personal solicitations, to the -large intelligence of
Chalmers, as doctor and head of the theological faculty; but neither
cecumenical council nor learned judge was to.be afforded to the so-called
heretic. They came in their gigs from among their sheep-farmers, from the
anxieties of the glebe and its tiny crops, those nameless Annandale
ministers-not pale theologians, but rosy, rural men; and to their hands,
all irresponsible in their safe obscurity, the decision of this momentous
and delicate difference of doctrine was calmly committed, nobody so much
as perceiving, at least nobody remarking upon, the total incompetence of
such a tribunal for any real settlement of-the question. "Edward goes down
to Annan to meet the Presbytery I think on the 12th of March. The Lord
give him a sound mind!" writes Dr. Martin to one of the affectionate and
anxious family, who
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IRVING'S ARRIVAL IN ANNAN. watched all Irving's proceedings with tender
curiosity. He went by way of Manchester, from which place, where his only
surviving sister still lives, he wrote to his wife of his affectionate
meeting with his kindred there-" my dear and precious mother, and my two
sisters and all their children here present"-and took time to remark that
"two sweeter children I have not seen" -than the little nephew and niece
whom he mentions by name. This, and the fact that he had dropped the bag
of sandwiches prepared for his refreshment on the journey "on the highway
for the benefit of some poor one or other-I lost it and grudged not" -is
all that is contained, besides his never-failing benediction, in the rapid
note of the wayfarer. On the morning of the 13th of March he t"arrived at
Annan," according to the report of the trial afterward published, "by the
London mail, and was met by Mr. Ker, of London, one of his deacons. A
crowd was collected in the street, in expectation of the reverend
gentleman's arrival by the mail; and, upon his alighting at the house of
his brother-in-law, Mr. Dickson, where the coach stopped on its way to the
inn, the crowd, which was at that time dispersed in groups, ran eagerly to
the spot, to catch a glimpse of their celebrated townsman. In the course
of the forenoon, hundreds of individuals of all classes kept pouring into
Annan from the neighborhood, and parties, in vehicles of different
descriptions, came in from Dumfries, Carlisle, Longtown, and other
neighboring towns. Twelve o'clock was the hour appointed for the
proceedings to commence at the parish church, and by that time the place
was literally crammed. It is computed that at least 2000 persons were
assembled." Irving was accompanied by Mr. Ker, by a Mr. Smith, who had
been the companion of his journey, and by the Rev. David Dow, formerly of
Irongray, a minister of the Church of Scotland, who had some time before
received the " gift of tongues and prophecy." After the court was
constituted, the libel or indictment was read. In this document, which was
of great length, Irving was accused of " printing, publishing, and
disseminating heresies and heretical doctrines, particularly the doctrine
of the fallen state and sinfulness of our Lord's human nature." No
evidence of any kind, except the admission of the accused that he was the
author of The Orthodox and Catholic Doctrine of Our Lord's Human N2ature;
The Day of Pentecost; and one specified article in the Morning Watch,
seems to have been considered necessary. A discussion then ensued upon the
" relevancy of the libel"-or, rather, no
Page 521
IRVING'S
DEFENSE. 521 discussion, for all were agreed, but a: statement by each
member of the Presbytery, individually, of his opinion. Dr. Duncan, the
only man among them whose name was ever heard out of Annandale, contented
himself with declaring the libel to be " relevant." Two of the members of
the Presbytery, however, made speeches on the occasion. The first, Mr.
Sloan, of Dornoch,'the hero of many local anecdotes, deplored "the
difficulties under which he labored in rising to combat with one of so
great a name as the Reverend Edward Irving-one with whom he was in many
respects so unequally yoked-though, notwithstanding that, as the stripling
David slew the giant Goliath with a stone from the brook, having gone
forth in the strength of the Lord, so he hoped to succeed in proving the
heresy of even so great a giant as that reverend gentleman." After a
considerable time spent in these preliminaries, Irving was permitted to
speak in defense. His speech is throughout a noble and indignant protest
against that disingenuous statement of the point at issue, which
infallibly prejudged the question, and which no amount of denial or
protest could ever induce his opponents to alter. With a warmth and
earnestness becoming the importance of the cause, he thus pleaded for a
true understanding of his own faith: "As to my maintaining that Christ is
other than most holy, I do protest that it is not true. It is not
true-before the living God I do declare it is false. And, though all men
should say it is true, I say it is false, and that it proceeds from the
father of lies. It has been held up in every pulpit within this land that
I have preached and disseminated doctrines inconsistent with the unity of
God. Albeit I deny it-I deny it. It is a lie. It has not a shadow of
foundation in truth. I would give my life, and, if I had ten thousand
lives, I would give them all to maintain the contrary. It is an unjust
slander. I never wrote, I never preached, such damnable doctrine; and that
all honest men can say. I stand in this place, and say that I am ready to
die for it..... I stand herej a witness for the Lord Jesus, to tell men
what He did for them; and what He did was this: He took your flesh and
made it holy, thereby to make you holy; and therefore He will make every
one holy who believes in Him. He came into your battle and trampled under
foot Satan, the world, the flesh, yea, all enemies of living men, and He
saith to every one,'Be ye holy, for I am holy.' Do you say that THAT man
was unacquainted with grief ?that He was unacquainted with the warrings of
the flesh? I dare ye to say that the Lord your Savior had an easier
passage through life than you had. I dare ye to say that His work was a
holiday work. Is this your gratitude to the Captain of your salvation? Can
you follow in His footsteps if He did not do the work?.. (The reverend
gentleman then turned to the 40th Psalm, which
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522 THE
CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVATION. he proceeded to read and comment upon.)'I waited
patiently for the Lord; he inclined his ear, and heard my cry,' etc. But
ye say He was never in the pit nor the clay. But I say HE WAS IN BOTH;
and, moreover, that all the water-floods of the Divine wrath passed over
Him, and that the Father left him to mourn with a great mourning.... The
Apostles taught out of the Psalms, and not from Confessions of Faith and
traditionary documents. But show me the Psalm where it is written that He
does not call our sins His own. But was He sinful? No; but look ye, the
very reverse of sin inhered in His soul. He suffered because He loved you;
and now you dare to say that He loved you not. Be ashamed to this day, ye
people! that ye know not more of Him who suffered so much for you. He bore
your sin. This broke His heart... Now, men and brethren, I am here this
day to tell you the truth as it is in Jesus." -Dr. _Duncanz rose and said
that it was evident Mr. Irving was speaking to the people of his own
doctrines, not to the Presbytery in his defense. JMr. Irving. " Oh no, no.
Don't prevent me saying what I wish in my defense." IThe Mioderator said
it seemed to him as if Mr. Irving imagined he was in London, preaching to
his people there. Me. Irving. "Oh, no, no, it is not so. I know well where
I now stand. I stand in the place where I was born, in the church wherein
I was first baptized and then ordained.... Ye ministers, elders, and
Presbytery, this is no question of scholastic theology. I speak for the
sanctification of men. I wish my flock to be holy; and, unless the Lord
Jesus has contended with sin, as they are commanded to do, how can they be
holy when they follow Hini? Can I ask the people to do or suffer more than
He did? He is the Captain of their salvation, and I wish.them to follow
Him!'Can a soldier who is sick, wounded, or dead, be expected to follow a
leader who is filled with the omnipotence of God? Nay. But if his captain
be sick, wounded, and dead too, may he not ask the soldier to do the like?
Now Jesus was sick for us, contended with sinful flesh for us, and hence
it is that He can call on us to follow -im in our contendings with sin,
our sicknesses, and deaths. Yea, and he does call on us.... Ah! was He not
holy? Did He not gain for us a victory? Holy in His mother's womb; holy in
His childhood; holy in His advaicing years; holy in His nativity; holy in
His resurrection, and not more holy in one than in another? And He calls
upon you to be holy; and this is what He says,' Be ye holy, for I am
holy.' This is my doctrine.... Mock me not by speaking of popularity. The
reproaches of a brother are hard to bear. Ye know not what I have
suffered; you know not what it is to be severed from a flock you love; to
be banished from your house; to be driven from a place of worship in which
ye have been honored, as God's servants, by the tokens of His approbation.
Yet, though thus scorned and trampled on, truth is prevailing. You shall
not go one half mile in London but you shall see some of our Scottish
youth, yea, and of our English youth also, standing up to preach that
truth for which I now appear at this bar. At Charing Cross, at London
Bridge, at the Tower, and
Page 523
DECISION
OF THE PRESBYTERY. 523 in all the high places of the city, you shall find
them preaching to a perishing people, and though often hooted and pelted,
yet patient withal. And I am sure the day is not far distant when the
evangelist shall go forth and be listened to throughout the land.
"Ministers and elders of the Presbytery of Annan, I stand at your bar by
no constraint of man. You could not-no person on earth could-have brought
me hither. I am a free man on a free soil, and living beyond your bounds.
Neither General Assembly nor Pope has a right to meddle with me. Yea, I
know ye have sinned against the Head of the Church in stretching thus
beyond your measure, and this sin ye must repent of.... Is it nothing,
think ye, that ye have brought me from my flock of nine hundred souls,
besides children, looking up to me for spiritual food? Is it nothing that
ye have taken me away fiom ruling among my apostles and elders, and
brought me three hundred miles to stand before you at this bar?.... I
stand here not by constraint, but willingly. Do what you like. I ask not
judgment of you; my judgment is with my God." I will not attempt to enter
into the decision of the Presbytery of Annan as contained in the speeches,
delivered one by one, of its clerical members. The only one reported at
any length is that of Dr. Duncan, who repeats for the hundredth time those
passages which Irving was as ready to quote and adopt as any man, in which
the Virgin's child is spoken of as that holy thing, and which describe our
Lord as " holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," and "
tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Calmly ignoring the fact that
the accused maintains that perfect and spotless sinlessness with an
earnestness which is almost passion, it is on these quotations:that this
honest and able Presbyter grounds his sentence. The other men, whose
arguments are not recorded, agree one by one. The accused is pronounced to
be " guilty as libeled." The Moderator then asks him if he has any
objection to state why sentence of deposition should not be passed against
him. " Objection! all objection," exclaims the defendant at that strange
bar; "I object, not for my own sake, but for the sake of Christ my Lord,
whom I serve and honor. I object for your sakes.... I object for the
Church's sake." "The reverend gentleman," continues the report from which
I quote, " again solemnly declared that he did not hold the sinfulness of
the human nature of Christ.... and concluded by most earnestly beseeching
the Presbytery, as they valued the salvation of their souls, not to pass
sentence upon him." Upon which ensued the following singular and exciting
scene: "The Moderator was then about to proceed to the solemn duty which
had devolved upon him, and, as a preliminary, requested Mr.
Page 524
524
IRVING LEAVES THE CHURCH. Sloan, the senior member of the Presbytery, to
offer up a prayer to Almighty God, when a voice was heard from the pew in
which Mr. Irving was seated, and which was immediately found to be that of
Mr. Dow, late minister of Irongray, exclaiming,' Arise, depart! Arise,
depart! flee ye out, flee ye out of her! Ye can not pray! How can ye pray?
How can ye pray to Christ whom ye deny? Ye can not pray. Depart, depart!
flee, flee!' The scene at this moment was singular, and the commotion in
the gallery not a little astounding. As there was only one candle in the
church, no one, at first, knew whence or from whom the voice proceeded;
and it was not till one of the clergymen had lifted the candle and looked
peeringly about that he discovered the interjectional words spoken were
emitted by Mr. Dow.... The assembly, which was very numerous, and had
acted in the most becoming manner, now became confused, and Mr. Dow rose
to leave the house. Mr. Irving, who was proceeding to follow his friend,
then exclaimed, also with great vehemence, and apparently to the crowd,
that somewhat obstructed his passage,' Stand forth! stand forth! What!
will ye not obey the voice of the Holy Ghost? As many as will obey the
voice of the Holy Ghost let them depart.'" Thus, in the twilight of the
March night, through crowds of confused and wondering spectators, who
heard that unlooked-for outcry without being able to see whence it
proceeded, Irving went forth from the church where he had been baptized
and ordained -from the Church of Scotland, the sanctuary of his
fathersnever more to enter within walls dedicated to her worship till he
entered in silent pomp to wait the resurrection and advent of his Lord.
There are, perhaps, few more striking scenes in his life than this in his
native church, filled with all those throngs of native friends-old people,
who had helped to form his mind-contemporaries of his own, who had watched
his wonderful progress with a thrill of pride and amaze; men to whom he
had been a brother; wistful women, scarcely able, for awe and pity, to
keep the tears within their eyes. From that May-day in which he knelt
there before his Master- and took his ordination vows, swearing a true
faith which he had never broken, a loyal allegiance and service to which
he had been true, with the fidelity of a spotless knight, to this bleak
afternoon of March, slowly shadowing, minute by minute, upon those clouds
of eager faces, growing pale in the darkness, what a brilliant interval,
what a wonderful difference! Clouds and coming night were now upon the
path to which he went forth, commanded by the Holy Ghost: no longer
triumph and victory, no second spring of hope; only the reproach that
broke his heart-the desertion-the sin, as he
Page 525
LETTER
TO HIS PEOPLE. 525 held it, of his brethren, for whom he would have given
his life. But it was a comfort to his forlorn heart to be sent forth by
that voice which he believed to be the voice of God. The anguish of
hearing the sentence of deposition was spared him, and with a pathetic joy
he rejoiced over this when he gave his own account of the eventful day.
Left behind in the dark church, with their two thousand tremulous, amazed
spectators, and their solitary candle, the Presbytery deposed him from the
ministry-took away from him, as far as they could do it, his clerical
character, and pronounced him no longer a minister or member of the Church
of Scotland; then, after seven hours' sitting, went after him into the
darkness, and disappeared henceforth out of all mortal ken-except in
Annandale, to be seen no more. Irving's own report of the proceedings was
sent next day to London, addressed as follows: "To the Church of Christ
under my pastoral care, and to the saints in London, with the elders and
deacons-grace, mercy, and peace from the Father, and fi'om the Lord Jesus
Christ, our Glory: "DEARLY-BELOVED IN THE LORD,.... Yesterday I arrived
here with my dear brother, Robert Smith.... and immediately after us
arrived David Dow,- and Mr. Nivan, and another brother, by whose coming I
was much encouraged. After we had prayed together, we met the Presbytery
at noon in the parish church, which was filled with people, and
straightway the ministers began to accuse me of heresy because I preached
and published the glorious name and work of God as the Word made flesh.
They put several questions to me concerning their manner of proceeding
against me, to which I would not answer a word, telling them to do their
own work in their own way, for that I would not in anywise make myself a
sharer in their guilt; nevertheless, I took this early opportunity of
disabusing the people, and solemnly protesting before the living God that
I was guiltless of the thought, word, or wish of making our Blessed and
Holy One a sinner. They then proposed to have a private conference with me
in the Sessions-house, apart from all the people, when God gave me grace
to refuse to every one of them the right hand of fellowship, yea, and not
to eat bread with them, and drink wine with them; and to tell them that
they had lifted up the standard of rebellion against the Lord Jesus
Christ, and that I would hold no conference of friendship with them, but
be at open and avowed enmity until they had ceased from persecuting His
faithful members. So I sat in the midst of them in silence and sorrow,
very much burdened and afflicted in soul that I should be thus called upon
to separate myself from- them, o:f whom many were members of the Church
before me, and some of them had laid their hands on me. We then returned
to the church and the great congregation, when, having received liberty
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526
DELIVERANCE. to speak for myself, I was strengthened by your prayers to
speak with great boldness for the name of Jesus, and to justify His truth,
and to vindicate myself as a member of Christ; also to reprove and rebuke
them all, both elders and: people, of their sins, and to proclaim in their
hearing the coming of the Blessed One, and the mercy and truth which are
now going before Him to prepare His way and set us in His steps. Oh, it
was a gracious and a sweet opportunity which He gave me of certifying to
His great name, and His perfect work of mercy and judgment. They then
proceeded, one after another, to pronounce me worthy of being deposed from
the holy ministry; and having asked me if I had any objection to their
doing so, I had another opportunity of pointinll out to them the awful sin
of which they were about to be guilty, and of protesting, before God and
all the people, that I was innocent of all the things laid to my charge.
Then they were proceeding to the fearful act; and as it is required that
they shall first pray before:the sentence of deposition is pronounced,
they had asked the oldest member to pray; but the Lord had mercy in store
for His servant, and would not suffer them to lay their hands upon me,
whom the Holy Ghost had set as an angel in His Church, and as they rose to
prayer, the Holy Ghost opened the mouth of David Dow, who sat at my right
hand, and with awful power and solemnity commanded us who would bear the
vessel of the Lord to depart, and touch not the unclean thing; and added
unto them one word of bitter rebuke ?' How can ye pray to God in any other
name than in that which ye have rejected!' Wherefore we arose at the voice
of the Lord and came forth, and I sang in my heart,'Blessed be the Lord,
who hath not not given us as a prey to their teeth; our soul is escaped as
a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken, and we are
escaped. Our help is in the name of;the Lord, who made heaven and earth.'
Now give thanks, my dearly-beloved, for the Lord himself hath broken my
bonds. For six hours did He try me in that furnace; and when He saw that I
did bear it for His name's sake, and would not be diverted by their
questions, nor enticed by their flatteries, from a faithful testimony to
His name, and that I would not shake hands, nor eat bread, nor confess a
friendship with those who were His enemies, He sent me that wonderful word
and set me free. I had already resolved, and was thereunto instructed by
the word of the Lord, while yet in the midst of you, neither to seek
judgment at the hand of the Synod nor at the General Assembly, and had
declared this: in the hearing of them all, so that I did not wait in
silence in order to express my thanksgivings unto the Lord for my
redemption out of all my bonds. But, behold, He would not suffer His
servant to be dishonored of them, and He snatched me away by this one
word. Meditate on His goodness and give Him thanks. I then sent to the
house of my sister, which joineth hard to the church, these two brothers,
Robert Smith and David Ker, to publish to the people that I would preach
to them to-morrow, that is, this day, at eleven o'clock, in the open
field. And now, dearly-beloved, when I saw the gross darkness of these
poor ministers, and the errors with which they have filled the breasts and
minds of the people in all these parts, I
Page 527
NITHSDALE AND ANNANDALE. 527 was much and powerfully convinced that it is
my duty to tarry here some days, and preach the Gospel to the benighted
people around, for I do not see that there is any of the brethren upon
whose hearts the Lord hath laid this as He hath upon mine.... and I do
purpose, by the grace of God, to tarry in these parts certain days, and
to/ publish in the towns of the coast the great Name of the Lord. I do
therefore commend you to the-Lord, and encourage the elders to strengthem
themselves in their God, who will abundantly supply all your wants,
through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. And now, wellbeloved, I commend
you to the Lord and to the riches of His grace, which is able to build you
up, and to give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified. Your
faithful and loving pastor, and angel over Christ's flock in London, EDWD.
IRVING. "Annan, March 14, 1833." A note appended to this general letter
informed his wife that he intended to preach at Kirkcudbright, Dumfries,
and at some of the villages in Annandale. Except this brief notice, I know
few details of his after proceedings. Wherever he did preach it was out of
doors, and to thousands of excited and sympathetic listeners. At
Cummertrees-on the Sands of Dumfries -and on a hill-side in Terregles, the
fair Terra;Ecciesia, through which Nith flows to the sea, his countryfolk
gathered to hear him whose voice they were never more to hear again. It
was a solemn leave-taking of his native hills and mosses. With an
indignation vehement as only grief could make it, he denounced the Church
which had cast him out-which had disowned not him, but his Lord, who "
came in the flesh," and preached with: an eloquence more intense and
inthralling than ever Christ's fellowship and love, Christ's coming and
glory. Then he took farewell of his kinsfolk and returned to London, where
what I can not but believe must have been another: and an equally- hard
trial awaited him. Deposed by his mother Church, he returned to Newman
Street, to the little community which, according to ordinary ideas, he
himself had originated and brought together, and of which he was supposed
to be the ruling influence; and when he arrived there, with his wounded
heart, he was received, not with extraordinary honors as a martyr, but
with an immediate interdict, in "the power" forbidding him to exercise any
priestly function, to administer sacraments, or to assume any thing out of
the province of a deacon, the lowest office in the newly-formed Church.
One o.f his relations writes with' affectionate indignation that he was
not permitted even to preach except in those less'sacred assemblies in
which the outer world of unbelievers were admitted to meet the Church; but
in
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528
REORDINATION. the church itself sat silent, deprived of his office, no
longer the angel to whom the apostle himself had to bow, but a simple
servant-doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. Such an inconceivable
indignity, according to all human rules, did the spiritual authorities,
whom his constant and steadfast faith had made masters of his flock, put
upon their former leader. No expectation of any such setting aside seems
to have been in Irving's mind when he subscribed himself their "faithful
pastor and angel over Christ's flock." This, however, was the welcome he
received when, sad and weary, he returned from Annan. As effectually as if
the decree of the Scotch Church Court had bound that recalcitrant
congregation, the deposed minister was silenced among them. I have no
right to affirm that this was one among the many wounds that went to his
heart, for not a syllable of complaint upon the subject ever came from
Irving's lips; but he seems to have had no expectation of so extraordinary
a proceeding, and it is something entirely unprecedented in the records of
religious organizations. Other men have founded sects to rule them;
Irving, no founder of a sect, came forth, through repeated anguish and
conflict, at the head of his community, only to serve and to obey.
Accordingly, those lingering March days glided on through all the oft
devotions of the Church: the prophets spoke and elders ruled; but in the
midst of them Irving sat silent, listening wistfully if perhaps the voice
from heaven might come to restore him to that office which was the
vocation of his life. Few of God's servants have been so profoundly
tested; and small would have been the wonder had his much-afflicted soul
given way under this last unkindness, with which Heaven itself Seemed
brought in to give a climax to man's ingratitude. At last, while he sat in
the lowest place, and waited with a humbleness to which I know no
parallel-strangest and mnost touching proof of that sincerity to which, in
the sight of God, he might well appeal-the " utterance" once more called
the forlorn but dauntless warrior to take up his arms. By" the concurrent
action in manifested supernatural power, both of prophet and apostle, he
was called and ordained angel or chief pastor of the flock assembled in
Newman Street," says the authorized "Chronicle" of that Church. The sacred
office, in which he had labored for so many wonderful years, and won such
usury of his Master's grand deposit-that office in which, for so many
sorrowful days, his surprised soul had been stopped short and put
aside-was restored to him by the apostolic hands of Mr. Cardale,
Page 529
"OUR
DEAR FATHER'S LETTER." 529 at the command of one of the ecstatic speakers.
And Irving accepted that reordination: he, upon whose devoted head no
gifts of inspiration descended, and for whose deliverance no miracles were
wrought-standing alone in the eminence of nature, among men, none of whom
on any but this supernatural ground could ever have reached his side
?stooped to the touch of the new apostle, and took back the ministry
which, through many a long year, God Himself had sealed in the saving of
souls. Not Ezekiel, when that prophet stood tearless, forbidden to weep,
and saw the desire of his eyes buried out of his sight, was a more perfect
sign to his generation than this loyal, humble, uncompensated soul. In
this moment of trouble and humiliation, heightened as it was with domestic
anxiety occasioned by the illness of his children, Irving's heart was
still alive to all the solicitude of a Christian priest-that character
bestowed by God, which neither Presbytery could take away nor apostolic
touch confer. Just then, when, so far as the intervention of the " gifted"
could obscure it, and the very countenance of his Master seemed withdrawn
from him, a letter came from Kirkcaldy to the sorrowful pair in Newman
Street, in which it appears-with that singular inhumanity which only
importunate affection can carry to its full height ?that the
father-minister, in his manse, had taken the opportunity to open once more
a full battery of arguments on the 1" Humanity" against Irving's wearied
spirit. Forwardingthis letter to his sister Elizabeth, the heart of the
pastor stirred in his troubled bosom. She and her husband had not followed
him, could not believe as he did; with grief on both sides they had so far
parted; but his thoughts were roused from his own troubles when he saw a
farther attack made upon their faith: "London, March 27, 1833. " MY DEAR
ELIZABETH,-At Isabella's request, I inclose this letter from her father,
that you may see how they all do. The Lord's hand is heavily upon us and
our dear children. Martin and Ebenezer are both very ill, and my wife and
I have been together up the great part of last night. She has lain down to
get some rest. Dear Elizabeth and dear William, be not shaken from the
true faith in which I founded you of our Lord's oneness with us, in all
the infirmities and temptations, properties and accidents of the flesh,
otherwise you will be subverted from the way of godliness altogether, and
fall into Pharisaical pride and hypocritical formality. If you can not go
along and suffer with me in all things, stand upon the rock, or you sink
into the waves. For, if the holiness of Jesus made Him avoid our flesh,
must we not, as we grow holy, avoid sinners, instead of embracing them
with our love, to draw them near, and so become Pharisees instead L L
Page 530
530
ANOTHER DEATH.-INFANT FAITH. of Christians? And oh! my children, if the
Son of God with our flesh could not be holy, how shall you and I in the
flesh be holyhow should we be commanded to be holy? Oh, give not way,
there, either to father or mother, or any mortal, else you go altogether.
These words I write to you, because I know you can bear them, and lest our
dear father's letter should prejudice your minds against the truth. "Your
faithful and loving brother, EDWD. IRVING." Meanwhile the youngest of the
children continued very ill. "H is mother said that the Lord had punished
their child for their sin," writes Mrs. Hamilton in April, " which sin, I
think, they conceive specially to be Edward's having remained in Scotland
after meeting with the Presbytery," an error for which, she proceeds to
say, he was sharply rebuked in the Church after he returned. But, whether
or not the ailing infant bore this burden, it is certain that its life was
waning; and another bereavement fell immediately, as intimated in the
following letter to Dr. Martin, upon the much-suffering house: 14 Newman
Street, April 23, 1833. "MY DEAR FATHER,-The Lord, in His severity and His
goodness, hath been pleased to chastise us for our sin and the sins of the
flock by removing from us our darling Ebenezer, who seemed, like Edward, a
child of God from his mother's womb; for, surely, during the months of his
life, he never showed any thing which might not become- a child of God;
and when, in faith, I addressed words of godliness to nourish the seed of
faith which was in him, his patient heed was wonderful. We are much
comforted of our heavenly Father and of our dear flock under all our
trials. Peace be with you. Farewell! " Your loving and dutiful son, EDWD.
IRVING." I can not undertake to account for the sublime unreason of this
man, who infaith addresses words of godliness to the dying infant. Perhaps
it may want small apology to those who, like myself, have seen that
solemnity of death shadowing over a baby-face, of which this "patient
heed" gives but too pathetic and affecting a picture. But he had long
believed in the possibility of infant faith-a point to which Coleridge
refers, in the Aids to Reflection, as one which he will not reply to "
honored Irving" upon without careful consideration of the whole question.
This article of faith, which may look fantastic enough to cool spectators,
the father of those dead children has bequeathed to his Church, which, I
believe, gives children a share in some of its most solemn services.
Limits of human possibility were never in Irving's heart; he could not
understand the existence of any soul debarred from
Page 531
AN
AMERICAN SPECTATOR. 531 communication with that Lord of life in whom he
had his being; it was easier far to believe that the little intelligence
which yet had not dawned into human expression was, in an intercourse even
more close than his own, hidden with Christ in God. It is strange to turn
from this passion and agony of human life, so heavily overcast by the
sorrows sent of God and the vexations imposed by man, to glance at what
the outer world was saying, and what miraculous uncomprehension existed in
the minds of many who came to gaze at the wonders in Newman Street. I do
not know who the American, Dr. Addison Alexander, may have been, but I am
told he was a man of some note in his own country. Hie was in Irving's
church on the 10th May, 1833, and sent an account of what he saw there to
the New York papers. With American detail, he described the man, the
church, and the services, which he thought "extremely well contrived for
scenic effect;" then added his impression of the demeanor of the preacher.
"' Dr. Cox and I," said the self-important trans-Atlantic spectator, "
flatter ourselves that he observed and preached at us. I saw him peeping
through his fingers several times, and I suppose he was not gratified to
see us gazing steadfastly at him all the time, for he took occasion to
tell the people that it would profit them nothing without the circumcision
of the car." This was the tone assumed, not by traveling Americans alone,
but by all the general public, which imagined itself too enlightened to be
deceived by any spiritual manifestations. It was ajuggle which was
supposed to be going on before those keen observers; and the heroic
sufferer, who stood upon that platform before them with the heart breaking
in his generous and tender breast, was the chief trickster of the company,
and was supposed to cast jealous eyes upon any curious stranger who might
"gaze" too "steadfastly," and, perhaps, find out the secret of the
imposture. In sight of such amazing misconception, miracles themselves
lose their wonder; nothing is so wonderful as the blindness of those human
eyes, which, "gazing steadfastly," do but demonstrate their own total
incapacity to see. During this summer considerable accessions were made to
the separated community. An independent congregation in the city, presided
over by Mr. Miller, having gone through the same process which had taken
place in Regent Square, attached itself to the new Church, its minister
being also reordained angel over it; and the ecstatic voices began to be
heard in the Church of Eng
Page 532
532 THE
"MORNING WATCH." land, from which they also ended by detaching at least
one clergyman in London. The most singular proof, however, of the advance
and development of the community is to be found in the winding up of the
Morning Watch, and the very remarkable reasons assigned for the ending of
that strange periodical, the history of which breaks in like an episode of
pure romance into the duller records of ordinary literature. Commenced at
first to afford a medium by which the consultations and conclusions of the
Albury School of Prophets might be brought before the public, it had
faithfully followed all the gradual expansions of the new Spiritualism.
Vague but grand expectations had been in the heart of its originators.
They believed the Lord to be at handthe world's history to be all
but-concluded. The night was over, the day breaking, when Henry Drummond
and his brother seers set their Morning Watch upon the battlements, that
the sentinels might communicate to each other how the shadows dispersed,
and the gleams of coming sunshine trembled from the east. Now a strange
fruition was coming to those hopes. Not the Lord, indeed-for the gates of
heaven still closed serenely in azure calm upon the far celestial
glory-but a Church, with all its orders of ministers called by direct
inspiration, a spiritual tabernacle, constituted by God himself, had been
revealed to their faith; and all that close band of true believers stood
breathless with expectation, each man listening whether, perhaps, his name
might not be the next upon the prophetic roll. One by one, the sentinels
thus summoned dropped into other offices; and at last it became necessary
for their leader to make the following announcement-such an intimation as,
I presume, no editor of a periodical ever made before since literature
was: " The followers of Christ and the followers of anti-Christ are now
gathering; each is now requiring, not merely the nominal, but the personal
services of their respective adherents; Christ is gathering His children
into the true Church, to do Him service there, and, in so doing, to be
prepared for His coming; Satan is gathering his hosts under the standard
of Liberalism to become the pioneers of that'Wicked One, that Man of Sin,
the Son of Perdition,' the personal anti-Christ. "In the progress of this
work, of gathering and preparing his followers, Christ, for some months
past, hath been calling for the personal services of nearly all the
regular correspondents of this journal, one after another; and He hath at
length called the editor to take the place of an elder in His Church, and
hath claimed all his time and services for the special duties of feeding
and overseeing a sixth part
Page 533
CONCLUSION OF THAT PERIODICAL. 533 of the flock of Christ in London. To
this higher calling the editor now resolves to devote himself wholly, and
at the same time brings the Morning Watch to a close, as he will not
transfer to any other person -such a solemn responsibility." This singular
periodical, a phenomenon in literature, came to a conclusion in June,
1833. The March number contained several papers of Irving's, and, in
particular, a most striking reply to Baxter's narrative-as eloquent an
address as one man ever made to another, for it is almost entirely a
personal appeal. When the Morning Watch ceased to afford him a means of
communicating his thoughts to the public, Irving wrote no more. The only
productions of his pen thereafter, except the sermons which he still
continued to dictate wherever he found an amanuensis, were now and then a
pastoral letter. His intercourse with the world, so far as literature was
concerned, had now terminated. In every way, that intercourse grew less
and less. He no longer went abroad to preach those open-air sermons, to
which, in the previous year, thousands listened. Events drew closer the
circle of fate; more and more he became isolated in that little world
guided by the ecstatic utterances, where daily development was lkfing
place. Darkly it appears, through the formal records of the official
Chronicle, that revolutions were being accomplished there, in which his
devoted soul acquiesced painfully and with difficulty. He had to be
instructed even in that new office of Angel, which at first, I read in the
Chronicle, he did not understand to be "any thing more than a Presbyterian
minister." He had to reconcile himself to the newly-bestowed spiritual
functions-much more wide than those which belonged to the same offices in
the Church of Scotland-of the elders and deacons, which, as the same
authority informs us, he "had not the least conception of," and at first
entertained "the utmost repugnance to." He had to learn, besides, that,
"after the apostolic office had been brought out," it was no longer his
part to draw conclusions from the prophecies, or to follow their guidance
upon his own authority; "and so contrary," we are informed, "was it to his
views and practice" to await the apostle's decision upon these matters,
"that he still continued to judge and act upon words spoken in his flock,
whereby great trouble and perplexity were occasioned both to himself and
his people." It is added, however, that " he at length perceived his
error" in all these particulars; yet, through the haze which envelops the
early growth of so exclusive a body, and through all the
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534 AN
EMBARRASSING RESTRAINT. personal affection which surrounds Irving himself,
it is plain to see, by glimpses, that this great, real, natural soul was
again sadly in the way of those rapidly-growing new conventionalities to
which only the conviction that they were ordained by God could make him
bow his head, and was once more an embarrassing presence to the lesser men
around, who knew not how to adapt their vestments to the limbs of a
giant.: From that dim world no more letters come forth to tell us how it
is with him in his own sincere and unconcealable spirit; but when, now and
then, for a moment, some other hand puts back the curtain, the picture is
sad and full of trouble. His reason and his heart struggle against those
bonds; but still he submits-always submits, bowing his lofty sorrowful
head, on which anguish and conflict have scattered premature snows, under
the yoke. Throughout the Chlionicle and other publications put forth by
the community, this great figure looms, always with formal acknowledgments
made of its greatness, often with natural outbursts of affection
celebrating its nobility, but, nevertheless, with a certain unexpressed
disapprobation visibly mingling with all praise. Even the apostles and
prophets arqpuzzled how to manage a soul so heroically simple, a heart so
warm. They are tender of his repugnances and reluctances, but can not
understand how it is that their restraints irk him. And so it is that his
days, which are numbered, glide on out of sight of the world. Outside,
people imagine him the leader, who has brought and keeps this congregation
together, and by right of whose permission prophets speak and elders
teach; but in reality, when one looks within, the scene is very different.
The apostles and prophets have patience with him when the light breaks
slowly, painfully upon his troubled soul; and, mastering all the
prejudices of his life, all the impulses of his will, this martyr, into
whose lingering agony nobody enters, still bends his head and obeys. A
single example of this, contained in a letter from his brotherin-law, the
Rev. J. Brodie, of Monimail, I may instance. The Communion was being
celebrated in the Newman Street Church one Sunday in June, and Mr. Brodie,
then in London on a visit, was present: "After praise and prayer, he
(Irving) proceeded to dispense the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and
pointed out the character of those who were invited to approach, and of
those who were unworthy. While he was doing this, one of the apostles
exclaimed,' And
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MANY
TRIALS. 535 if there be any one who does not acknowedge that the Spirit of
God is among us, if there be any one that doubts the work of the Lord, let
him abstain; let the unbeliever depart.'... Next forenoon Mr. Irving came
to call for me. I very readily expressed my belief that not a few of those
who belonged to. his congregation were true believers in the Savior, when
he asked me,'Why, then, did you not come and join with us at our
communion?' I replied,'Even if I had desired to do so, how could I, after
having heard it so plainly stated that all who doubted as to the nature of
those manifestations were commanded to abstain?' He paused a moment, and
then said,'Ah! yes; the Spirit hath so enjoined us.' I saw that it was not
without a struggle that he gave up the liberal and truly catholic feeling
by which he had formerly been led to regard all true believers as
brethren." How many of such groans burst out of Irving's laboring heart is
known only to the Divine Confidant of all his sorrows. The grieved and
anxious brother who records this incident plied him inevitably once more
with argument and appeal, representing that "these manifestations were the
effects of excited imagination." In the midst of the harder sacrifices by
which he had now to prove his devotion, the sufferer's constancy and
patience had again and yet again to go through this trial. He was still
remonstrated with about that belief which was bringing upon him internal
struggles more severe than any man knew of, and still he held to that only
ground on which he could sustain himself, in forlorn but sublime
confidence-the conviction that he had asked sincerely, and that God had
answered. But God's ways were dark to His all-trusting servant-" His
footsteps are not known." Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, a
profound expectation still moved the community in Newman Street, and kept
hope and strength in the breast of Irving. The details of the living
tabernacle were not all that he looked for from heaven. The baptism by
fire was yet to come, and apostolic gifts, more marked and distinctive
than the supernatural impulses which moved Mr. Cardale to confer
ordination, were promised to the faith of the Church. This state of
expectation is very apparent in the following letter addressed to a pious
household in South America, one of the members of which, when in England,
had been a partaker in the gift of prophecy: "London, 14 Newman Street,
July 29, 1833. "MY DEAR FRIENDS AND BRETHREN,-... In respect of the
matters concerning which you ask my counsel, I think that you, my dear
Mrs. K-, ought both to desire and earnestly pray to be made
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EXPECTING "POWER FROM ON HIGH." the vessel of the Holy Ghost, seeing that
once He hath honored you in so wonderful a manner. But I believe that this
will not be until those of the brethren who are set with you to seek the
Lord do separate themselves to prayer and supplication, and waiting upon
the Lord to join them into a Church, and endow them with His gifts and
ministries from heaven.... But do nothing without His voice; administer no
ordinance, take upon you no rule; only wait upon Him, and, until He appear
for you, use the ordinances as they are found among you in the Protestant
Church, from which I would not have you to separate or secede, but be
along with them in the bondage and barrenness, in every thing but in sin,
crying for them and for all the people bitterly unto the Lord, who will
separate you when and how He knoweth best. " In respect of an evangelist
being sent to you from my Church, I know they shall be sent out unto all
the world from this land, and especially from this Church, if we abide
faithful and patient in the Lord; but not until we receive power from on
high, the outpouring of the latter rain, the sealing of the servants of
God upon their foreheads, which even now God longeth to give, for which we
wait and pray daily, yea, many times a day. Therefore be patient with us,
and labor together with us in the Lord for the accomplishing of this very
thing. He is preparing builders here; He is gathering stones every where.
Pray that the laborers may be sent forth unto the harvest, for the fields
are already ripe unto the harvest. We are heavy and fruitless in the
Lord's hand, yet doth He glorify His abundant grace and goodness in the
midst of us, for He hath by no means forsaken us, but doth daily both
rebuke and comfort us. Truly my heart weepeth while I write over the let
and hinderance we have presented to His work, whereby it hath come to be
evil-spoken of over all the world.... Oh, my brother, restrain thy
imagination from the handling of things divine, but in faith and prayer be
thou built up and established in all truth..... My love to all the
brethren who love the Lord Jesus! "Your loving friend and servant, for the
Lord's sake, "EDWD. IRVING." The remainder of the year was spent in this
expectant yet sad suspense, waiting for " power from on high," and, when
it did not come, groaning in heart over that want of faith which presented
" a let and hinderance to God's work" within the isolated circle of the
Church in Newman Street. Of that silent conflict which Irving had now to
wage with himself, last and perhaps sorest of his trials, there remains no
record except the scanty intimations in the Chronicle of the reluctance
with which he received various particulars of the new order of things. But
" light broke in upon his mind" always at last; he "confessed his error;"
and so struggled onward on his sorrowful path, more and more wistfully
conscious that God's footsteps are not known.
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