CHAPTER I. EARLY HISTORY.
“That there was in Christ's flesh a proclivity to the world and to Satan and that Christ received such a measure of the Holy Ghost as sufficed to resist this proclivity, is a doctrine so fearfully erroneous, that I cannot conceive anyone who has at all learned Christ, unless he be blinded by delusion, can allow himself for a moment to entertain. Christ, the Holy Thing as born of the virgin, to whom the prince of this world cometh, and findeth nothing in Me; also holy, harmless, and undefiled—that in His flesh there could be a proclivity to Satan, which needed to be resisted; or that He, of whom it is declared, that God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him, should be held to have received only a measure of the Spirit, and this for the purpose of resisting a sinful tendency in His flesh: this is a departure from the truth, which is broad as the day. But if any one's eyes should be holden that he cannot see its errors, singly considered; when it is conjointly affirmed, that regeneration through faith, sealed in baptism, cloth give to us the same measure of the Spirit, to do the same work of making our flesh the holy thing—dark indeed, must be our state, if we do not instantly see how Christ is first abased towards our sinful condition, and we next exalted to be put on an equality with Him: as though Christ had a work to do in making His own flesh holy, and we are enabled to do the same work and make our flesh holy. What said the apostle Paul, after he was called to his apostleship, and had been caught up into the third heaven, and had received gifts of the Holy Ghost abounding above all others? ‘I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.' And again, ‘So that with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with flesh the law of sin.' And what does he say of every believer who is born again of the Spirit of God? ‘If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.' Here is no holiness of flesh, but a plain declaration, that even in those in whom Christ dwells the body is dead because of sin, and the flesh has no good things, but serves the law of sin. The apostle's glorying was not that he had made his flesh holy, but the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, which made us free from the law of sin and death; adding, if we live after the flesh ye shall die: but if ye, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. The living after the Spirit, and mortifying the deeds of the body, was the apostle's state, and is our state, as many of us as are born of God; whereas, if our flesh were made holy, what need would there be to mortify it?
“I have heard the sophistry which denies that the tendency or proclivity to sin is itself sin, and which dares, therefore, to ascribe the first to our beloved Lord in His human nature, while it is properly indignant at the second. As it regards ourselves, I am ready to admit, that God does not bring us into judgment for such a tendency to sin, when we mortify and resist it, the apostle showing the ground of such mercy, where it is written, ‘Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' But yet we must say, as expressed in the article of our church, The apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin. But who shall say that in our Lord the law of the flesh was all present, but by a holy life kept down, without feeling that such a statement compromises the character of ‘holy, and undefiled?’ The law of the flesh is the law, of sin and death, or, in other words, that corruption of nature which is called the lust of the flesh, and which is the mark and consequence of original sin. Now, surely all will agree, that not a breath or suggestion of sin—no lust—no desire—ever arose in or from the flesh of our blessed Lord. The law of the flesh, which in us daily sends up streams of corrupt desires, though our flesh never was in Him nor ever could be in Him, so as to need to be resisted or kept down. To suppose this corruption to be in Jesus, is to deny His holiness.
However much, and however completely you may affirm it to be kept down, if it ever was there, holy and undefiled are set aside at once.
“I would not lay hold of words to convict a man of heresy, if his real intention was not comprised in those words. Every man may err in words; and hard indeed is it, if we should lie in wait for one another, to make a man an offender for a word. The letter copied, however, does so clearly show Mr. Irving's mind, that, far from doubting whether it is not a matter of words, it is very obvious that his general design and view is unsound. As gathered from the letter itself, and as confirmed by subsequent conversations with him, I gather his general design or broad doctrine to be this—That Christ Jesus, though God as well as man, yet was a man in all respects such as we are, and was by the power of the Holy Ghost, from His generation to His death, upheld in holiness and perfect parity; and that we receiving through His blood the pardon of past sins, are now called to receive the Holy Ghost; and by the same power of the Holy Ghost, shall, if we faint not, be ourselves, in the flesh, brought into and upheld in holiness and perfect purity, as fully as Jesus was.
“To sustain these propositions, Mr. Irving sees it necessary to suppose the law of sin to have been in the flesh of Jesus: otherwise the work of the Holy Ghost, in sustaining Jesus in perfect holiness, would be no precedent nor assurance to us, that by the Holy Ghost we can be sustained in equal holiness. Here then, lies the first error, in ascribing to Jesus that corruption of nature, as it regards His flesh, which belongs to all of us. The next error lies in putting out of sight the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us, which is our wedding garment, and in which we are holy and without blame in the sight of the Father—seen as standing in Christ; and, in the stead of this, requiring us to work out a personal holiness, and, by the power of the Spirit, to make ourselves holy as Christ was holy.”
It is not needful to give all the workings of Mr. B.'s conscience more fully. “These considerations of doctrine weighed with me, and I could not for a moment doubt the erroneousness of Mr. Irving's views. I was then of necessity compelled to conclude the utterances which supported these views were not of the Spirit of God. Upon this a doubt arose in my own mind, which however I trembled to entertain; and yet with such facts before me I could not reject: whether the whole work was not of Satan. I could not conceive of a person speaking at one moment by the Spirit of God, and the next by the spirit of Satan. Moreover it had been declared in the power by the mouth of Mrs. C., Miss E. C., and my own mouth, that God would guard the utterances of His prophets, and that they should never be permitted to speak by the power of Satan. According therefore to my view and understanding of scripture, a false utterance convicted a person of being a false prophet; and this was also according to the interpretation of the power I had been acting under. Mrs. C., Miss E. C., and Mr. T. were therefore on both grounds manifestly to be deemed false prophets; and this, as to the two former, upon a test of scripture doctrine. Then was not I convicted as a false prophet by the non-fulfillment of the words I had spoken according to the test in the book of Deuteronomy? And might not the whole be accounted for as a chastisement of God sent for the correction of heresy? All who were caught in it having drank of, or sustained, that heresy. These questions and considerations weighed upon my mind and almost worked conviction.
“On the other hand so strongly was the whole interwoven with interpretations of scripture, and so much of the fruits of the Spirit had I seemed to find under it, so entirely had I become pledged to the work, and my character and consistency become involved in it, I paused and weighed again and again the several facts and proof, trembling at entertaining doubts at all.
“It had been very providentially ordered that I was expecting a professional call from home on the very day succeeding the arrival of Mr. Irving's letter; and I had arranged for a week's absence. The same post which brought me this letter brought me also a respite of my engagement, and left me at liberty. Otherwise, having engagements to preach almost every morning and evening, I should have been still more perplexed as to my course. If I stayed from preaching, it might overthrow the faith of many, and give occasion to the enemy to traduce the work; if I went on preaching it whilst I had doubts upon it, how could I answer it to conscience? There would have been no time for consideration, but for this providential opening; and I at once availed myself of it to visit the brother to whom I have before alluded. During the journey, which occupied two days, I was, as may be supposed, engaged in consideration Of the subject; and the whole train of circumstances from the beginning, with the successive failures of prophecy and contradiction of utterance, when calmly reviewed and compared with the present fact of the support of false doctrine, were so strongly affirmative of the evil origin of the work, that, however supernatural I had found it and still knew it to be, I was convinced it must be a work of Satan who, as an angel of light, was permitted for a time to deceive us.
“My brother, who had continued speaking in the power, examined the doctrines and fully agreed in their fearful errors. He weighed also the facts which I had to state to him, and joining them with other facts which had occurred within his own observation, he arrived of the same conclusion as myself.
“Being anxious to communicate with Mr. Irving I traveled on to London, and reached him on the morning of his appearance before the presbytery of London. Calling him and Mr. J. C. apart, I told them my conviction that we had all been speaking by a lying spirit, and not by the Spirit of the Lord. He said it was impossible God could have sent us strong delusions, for that was His final judgment upon the wicked; and we at least thought ourselves seeking after the Lord, and desiring His glory. I answered, I believed God had sent it as a chastisement for pride and lofty imaginations; that we had been lifted up in our hearts, and God would humble us. He was astounded, but asked me to stay with them a little. I replied, I could not without rebuking the utterance, if it were made by any of the speakers in my presence; and as he would not suffer this, we parted. I saw him again in the evening; and on the succeeding morning I endeavored to convince him of his error of doctrine, and our delusions concerning the work of the Spirit; but he was so shut up, he could not see either. I particularly pressed, upon Miss E. C. and Mrs. C., and before him also, the non-fulfillment of the word, and particularly the falseness of that prophecy which they, as well as myself, had given—that God would guard the utterance of His prophets, and not suffer Satan to speak by them; whereas in the case of Mr. T [aplin] alluded to in Mr. Irving's letter, he who was and (I believe) is still received as a prophet, had, in the midst of the congregation, with tongues, and with English, spoken evil of Mr. Irving; and Miss E. C. had since in utterance declared he spoke it of Satan. They however could not see the non-fulfillment in the other cases; and in this case they said we must have mistaken the meaning of the utterance—that it could not mean God would keep the utterance always, but when they were speaking, He would not suffer Satan to mingle words with His word: a most miserable subterfuge.
“The argument on which Mr. Irving mainly relied for parrying the difficulties was this—that the same person might at one moment speak by the Spirit of God, and the next moment by an evil spirit. He urged therefore, that those things which had failed were from the false spirit, and those which were fulfilled were of God. I had the most distinct remembrance, when I first heard Mr. Irving preach upon the utterances, that he preached the utterances, being the voice of God, were pure water without admixture—that he might in his exposition as a man fail, or fall into error, but in the word of the Lord, ministered by the prophets in their utterances, the most entire and implicit confidence might be placed, as in every respect and purely the truth. Out of this position lie was, however, evidently driven by the appalling fact of the prophets, before all the congregation, denouncing him as the cause of the Lord's anger against the congregation—this denunciation coming with every usual demonstration of power and tongues. The only solution now to be found was, that the utterance at one time might be of God, and at another time of Satan, even in the same person. For if this were not admitted, Mr. T., being himself recognized as having spoken by God in his former utterances and by Satan in this. would either overturn the whole fabric of the spiritual gifts and falsify the claims of the prophets, or must be himself still received as a prophet, notwithstanding his false utterance.
“The mere enunciation of the proportion of a varying origin, whilst the outward demonstration remained the same, was enough to shake even the nerves of Mr. Irving. To be under the necessity of telling such a fact to his congregation, and thereby assuring them that they could no longer give credence to the utterances without deciding upon the origin of each message; to tell them moreover, that no one could decide this without the gift of the discernment of spirits; and lastly that no member of his church yet possessed that gift—this would seem beyond the courage of any minister, and beyond the power of belief of any people. To this however was Mr. Irving reduced, and to this were his people subjected.
“It was attempted to decide the origin of the utterance in the mind of the speakers from whom it came by prescribing a certain frame (e.g. a calm sense of the love of God in Christ and of our abiding therein), as the proof of the utterance from the Spirit of God; and an opposite state of mind, as a proof of the utterance being deceitful. This, however, I could experimentally contradict. For several utterances which were still held true, and particularly that which Mr. Dow had confirmed, were made when I was in the disturbed frame; and others which had proved false were given under the prescribed heavenly frame; and I was fully persuaded that no such line of distinction could honestly be drawn” (pp. 116-120).
We may leave Mr. I.'s argument on Jer. 15:77And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways. (Jeremiah 15:7) (a strange and misleading juxtaposition, and yet more Ezek. 14:99And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. (Ezekiel 14:9)), as well as Mr. B.'s reply in disproof. Deut. 13. and 18. are, as he shows, quite at issue with the desired excuse for error in a true prophet from God's word. From p. 123 we may cite: “I am overwhelmed (says Mr. B.) with the remembrance of my own blindness and unfaithfulness by hesitating at all after one instance of the failure of the word; and I may well shut my mouth against the like offense in others. But I desire to confess my sin, and in love to those who like myself are erring, to pray them take warning and no longer to continue such a provocation.
“It is not necessary I should enter into any subsequent communications which have passed with those holding the manifestations. After my first visit, I found the utterance amongst them warned them against having intercourse with me; and they now shut themselves up, refusing to hear arguments, or discuss the subject at all. It may however be only just towards Mr. Irving that I should give another letter of his, written some months after my renunciation of their views; as he there again fully sets forth his doctrinal views, and if he intended this in any particular to correct the expressions in his former letter, he ought to have the benefit of it.
“London, July 6,1832.
“My dear brother, I can no longer refrain from writing you in a few words what I believe to be a most heinous sin under the oppression of which you are lying bound. It is the sin of blaspheming the ministers, and prophets, and church of God, and calling us ministers of Satan under the form of an angel of light. Not to bear testimony of myself, still less to judge thee, O brother, do I say this, but to assure thee that herein thou hast sinned, and dost sin exceedingly, nor wilt be restored till thou restore thyself to charity with thy brethren who have never but loved thee.
“My testimony to Jesus is that in our flesh He was most holy. That His flesh was in itself no otherwise conditioned, nor is otherwise to be defined than ours, with all its laws, properties, and propensities. But through His anointing of it, and upholding of it from first to last, it hath no other properties nor propensities than those which may be predicated of God—holy as He is, pure as He is, yet temptable, mortal, and corruptible as ours—until the resurrection changed its form and fashion altogether.
“Concerning the holiness of the believer, my testimony is that he ought never to be less holy both in flesh and spirit than Jesus was; and that the same power of God incarnate, which presented Christ's flesh and Spirit holy, is bestowed upon the believer at baptism, to present his flesh and spirit always holy through faith. And every short-coming from holiness is not of necessity, nor of accident, nor of circumstance, but of positive will not to believe, and not to receive the power of regeneration, which is the continuance unto us of the power of generation in Jesus. Wherefore we are called ‘holy ones,' and ‘sons of God,' as he was called ‘The holy Thing,' and ‘Son of God.' He kept the name of the Father, and glorified it: we have not kept it, and therefore need continual atonement and intercession.
“Furthermore, concerning the baptism of the Holy Ghost, my testimony is, and ever has been, that it is the indwelling of the Father in the members, after what manner He dwelt in the Head while on earth, for the same ends and for what other ends the Father may have to accomplish by His church until He comes.
“Now, brother, you may not apprehend these things, thy natural mind being very formal and wedded to its forms; whereas the fashion of my natural mind is rather ideal, or spiritual (!). But because then apprehendest not the truth in that form in which I do, shouldest thou say that thy brother hath a devil, when thou knowest from my fruits that I serve God with a pure conscience? And my dear flock thou hast misrepresented, whom yet thou knowest not. My love to thy soul, my desire to see thee standing where God set thee—a spiritual minister beareth no longer that this sin should be upon thee. Repent of it, and ask forgiveness of the Lord. I fully forgive thee, and love thee with a pure heart reverently, as I have ever done and never ceased to do, though thy words and letters, of which I have seen some and heard of others, have sore wounded me. Repent of thy rash judgments against the children of God, that thou mayest be healed of thy sin. I write to thee as a man of God, and minister of His gospel, even thy brother in great love. For I know thou art an honest man, though thou hast greatly erred through thy rashness. Your faithful brother,
EDWARD IRVING.'
Some general characteristics in the work casting suspicion on it, which follow in pp. 126-129, we may leave, as also Mr. B.'s testimony to the sincere piety and devotedness of Mr. I. and others with him whom he knew, with his judgment of the inadequacy of the tests applied (pp. 129-133). In this last page he adds his personal experience of the tongue. “A few days before the prophecy of my call to the apostolic office, whilst sitting at home, a mighty power came upon me, but for a considerable time no impulse to utterance; presently a sentence in French was vividly set before my mind, and under an impulse to utterance was spoken. Then in a little time sentences in Latin were in like manner uttered, and with short intervals sentences in many other languages, judging from the sound and the different exercise of the enunciating organs. My wife who was with me declared some of them to be Italian and Spanish; the first she can read and translate, the second she knows but little of. In this case she was not able to interpret nor retain the words as they were uttered. All the time of these utterances I was greatly tried in mind. After the first sentence an impulse to utterance continued on me, and most painfully I retained it, my conviction being that until something was set before me to utter, I ought not to yield my tongue to utterance. Yet I was troubled by the doubt what could the impulse mean, if I were not to yield to it. Under the trial I did yield my tongue for a few moments, but the utterance that broke from me seemed so discordant that I concluded the impulse without words given was a temptation; and I retained it, except as words were given me, and then I yielded. Sometimes single words were given me, and sometimes sentences, though I could recognize neither the words nor sentences as any language I knew, except those which were French or Latin. What strengthened me, upon after consideration, in the opinion that I ought not to yield my tongue was the remembrance that I had heard Mr. Irving say, when explaining how the utterance in tongue first came upon Mr. T., that he had words and sentences set before him. Immediately after this exercise there came an utterance in English, declaring that the gift of tongues, which was manifest in London, was nothing more than that of the tongue needing interpretation, manifested formerly in the Corinthian church; but that shortly the Lord would bestow the Pentecostal gift, enabling those who received it to preach in all languages to the nations of the earth. I was on several other occasions exercised in this same way, speaking detached words and sentences, but never a connected discourse.
“When I went to London after this, I questioned those who spoke in the tongues, whether they had the words and sentences given, or yielded their tongues to the impulse of utterance without having them. They answered almost entirely the latter, though sometimes also the former. I was also in London made to confirm in utterance before Mr. Irving what I had spoken here concerning the Pentecostal gift of tongues for preaching; and such was the readiness with which he yielded to the utterances, that, though he had both written and published that the Pentecostal gift was not for preaching, he at once yielded and confessed his error, giving thanks for the correction. Oh! that he may manifest the same ingenuousness in abandoning his opinion concerning the power, when, weighing its fruits, he sees it is not of God.
“My persuasion concerning the unknown tongue as it is called (in which I myself was very little experienced) is, that it is no language whatever, but a mere collection of words and sentences; and in the lengthened discourses is, much of it, a jargon of sounds” (p. 134). To this we may all agree, save in the unfounded distinction as to Corinth, which was clearly similar to Pentecost. How could a sober Christian think the Holy Spirit conferred there or anywhere “a jargon of sound”? Neander, in his History of the Planting of Christianity, reasons on the “tongues” in 1 Cor. 12; 14 as ecstatic to set aside the force of Acts 2:6-86Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. 7And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? 8And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? (Acts 2:6‑8); but such efforts to explain away scripture are as lamentable as vain. The Lord had promised this sign in Mark 16:1717And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; (Mark 16:17).