An Examination of the Views of Edward Irving Concerning The Person and Work of Jesus Christ

273 Pages·2015·11.15 MB·English

by  Davies, Paul Ewing

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AUTHOR: Davies, Paul Ewing
TITLE: An Examination of the Views of Edward Irving Concerning
The Person and Work of Jesus Christ
SHELF MARK: PhD 1928

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An Examination of the "Tliews of ~~dward Irving
eo nee rning
The Person a nd ':to r k of Jesus Christ •
Thesis subr.1itted for the Degree of Ph. D.
by
Paul ::~wing Davies, .-. \.B., B. D.
Fellow of l:tcOo rmick r.cheol'Jr-icnl Seminary
Chicn~o,
Illinois
u.s.A.
/Lj? .z ?~
i
rrni s study 0 f th o vi e\'lf3 of Edwa rd Irvi ng on
the persan and w0rk of Jesus Chri~t has been l~ng
de la y ed in it s p re qa r a t ion • It is to be ho p ed t ha t
the time r1hich has elapsed since its inception has
served a beneficent purpose. It was Charles Darwin
·,1ho wrote of one of his books, lJng po stponcd: "The
delay in thiB case, as with Dll my athr;r b0oks, has
bAen ~ great advontage to me; for a man after a l1n~
interval con criticise his own ~ork, 8lmost as well
a 8 if i t v.r er e t hD t o f a no t h c r ·-person • n
'.l'he matc:rinl 0n VJhioh this study is based takes
in t !1o ['ull ro nr;e from the coarse venom of the L'lndon
1
pamphleteer to the s tr Jnp:· words of Chomas Csrlyle.
Irvinr; himself wrote valume n fter valume, and the
~3tudent ia ?lmo~3t emb~1rrassed by the material fr0m
the pen of this eccentric preacher. ~.:.rhole nections
of this :firF1t -hD nd materia 1 deal in~ V!i th subjects
prophetical were passed by as irrelevant to the theme.
The "Life" by l:trs. Oliphant is most reAdable and ~ives
':n :Jttrnctive picture of the hero.. But the sentimentslism
of th~} book cnuts a shade upon its historical vglue,
u nd the u tuden t is t I1rov1n back on n ccounts of the life
··.-.rhich, thour~h less CIJT!1plete, were \v-ri tten shortly after
his time.
11
1 1
1he form which thiG examinution ha:=; taJ~en may
appear too logical and analytical for the transient
utterances of this ~ielder of words. The RAncral
;-1chern.e follJ'.VS the life of Irvinr: \'li th ch'lpters
~ivcn to a c0nuiclera tion of his general reli:=cious
bgckp;round, the delineation of his psrticular views
on the person and work of Jesus Christ and finGlly
n cri tic~11 s1umnary of his contribution. r.rhe views
·)n the0l01~Y h·_1ve been pictured in the settin~ of the
life. The lack o:f arcanr;ement in the ~·1ritinr,-s of
Irvinp; fr)rces upon the student the formulation of
so rn e 1 o ~~ i c a 1 o rd er •
E'Jreover, the VJriter is consciaus again and
again of an over-critical spirit tov1ard the ideas of
Irving. It har:: been hard to denc:cibe without criticising,
for the peculin ri ties are Ro {!la ri np,. Comr:1ents of
criticism have beon inserted into paragrnphs of
description, instead of being reserved for a lnter
cri ticnl sumr.1ary. But the con~3tant criticism has
served st least one purpose in the formulation of
the rrr iter's iclea s on some ·a :f these subjects. If
these studies are intended to develop the student's
own thinking, this exar:1ina ti on of the viev1s of
~dward Irving has sP-rvcd its purpose. For the
pendulum of theol'3gica 1 belief has in many lines
swung to the opposite extreme fron that of Irving.
I owe a debt of Rratitude to my faculty
ndviscrs, Professor H.R. Mackintosh and Principal
Hu~hes, for their help and advice in launching
this thesis. The taok was greatly simplified by
the splendid collection of books on the subject
in the 1 i b r~J ry o :f Hew· C J 11 e ~ e, and I vva n t t o
e~press my appreciation of the librarian there
·~'Jho gr~_=tntod me r:1ony p:rivil8ges.
1Iarch 1, 1928
30 OsklB nd Court
Sp~ingfield, Ohio, U.S.A.
Table of Contents
l?refac e - - - - - - - - Pc9 p,es i - iii
Chapter I ''Edwa rcl Irving" - - - - - Pages 1 - 44
Chapter II "General Backtsround of
Theology"- -PaReS 45 - 76
Chapter III ''HeresyJ" - - - - - - - - Pages 77·- 97
Ch8pter IV "Ohri ~~ t, Our Brother'' - - Pages 98 - 142
Chapter V "A r.:oral Christ" - - - - PDg CS 143 - 184
Chapter VI "Christ nncl the Holy
Spirit" - - - Pnges 185 - 223
Chn pter VII ., '.rhoo lop:i csl Surnmn ry
and Criticism" Pnges 224 - :~.35
Ch-'lpter VIII ''Oonclus ion" - - - - - - Pa ~es 236 - ~~65
Chapter I.
Edward Irving
Introduction Page 2
The Reasons for His Obscurity
The Value of the Study
l.Life until 1827 Page 7
Early Life
Education
Teaching }~perience
I.I in i s try at S t • John ' s , Gl a s go w
TJinist~J at Hational Scotch Church,
L')ndon
2.Personality Page 19
His Sincerity
His Self-Consciousness
His 3nergy
His Desire to be Loved
3.Menta 1 Characteristics Page 22
Naiveness
Lack of Critical Judgment
Imn~inative Quality
Expansive Quality
Lack of a Sense of Humor
Extreme ·~uali ty of Hind
4. Influences from \'li thout Page 30
2
Chapter I.
Edward Irving
The memory of Edward Irving, minister of the
National Scotch Church, London, has faded too soon.
Within a century after his death the religious world
has forgotten him, except as the founder of the
(1)
Catholic Apostolic Church and the propounder of
a misunderstood doctrine of our Lord's human Nature,
It must be confessed that even to his contemporaries
the position which he occupied seemed to be a doubt-
:ful one; his earliest biographer writing a year
after Irving's death said,"Irving was a meteor in the
moral and religious world, a nine days wonder: And
1
Thomas Carlyle, at one time Irving s closest friend,
looked upon him as upon one who had "vanished
tragically,and fled into oblivion and da.rkness, like
(2)
a bright dream!" Few young ministers have come to
their work with higher hopes; Irving sought to bring
in a better type of Christianity, "as broad as thought
. ( 3)
and experience." And seldom has the public accorded a
minister a more immediate and startling sign of.
approval. But although London flocked fn crowds to
hear him, this strange wonder from Scotland, he reigned
(1) The Catholic Apostolic Church refuses to be called
the "Irvingite Church", probably because t:"'tair universal
claims are not compatible with the idea of sectarianism.
It is olearlJ.however that there would be no such church·.
today if Irving's genius had not exerted its power.
(2) Carlyle's Reminiscences Vol.II edited by O• . E.Norton
- London 1887 Chapter on "Edward Irvingn.
(3)Farewell Address to the Congregation of St.John's,
Glasgow. June 1822 page 22.
3
as the popular idol for only a day, and his voice
was drownid in a babel of tongues.
A number of elements contributed to the
obscurity in wh~ch his memory now rests. His style
of utterance was not the natural one of his day,
and it is a trial of the modern reader's patience
to find the path of thought through the wilderness
of words. Sterling·: s~id, "His uno easing irehemenc e
(1)
makes me dizzy," "liis polemical violence repels."
It is but fair to say that in his early years he
could write in a natural, smooth-flowing manner,
as, for example, in his little tale,"The Loss of
the Abeona.n Nevertheless when·his genius had
ripened somewhat, his language became that of the
King James' translation of the Bible, and his
general style came to be consciously modelled after
( 2)
that of Hoolcer and Jeremy Taylor. He is verbose
and his wordy reasoning leads one back and forth
over the same ground, although because mt is in an
ever-changing verbal dress the reader is not always
aware of this repetition of thought. Carlyle charac-
:terized his sermons as "those grand forest-avenues
of his, with their multifarious outlooks to right
(1) Sterling's Life Xlvi
.(2) The Orations -preface to third edition Deo.l,l823.
4
( 1)
and left". Preacher-like, Irving is so b~y going
into these digressions that he does not oarry us very far
into the hazy depths of his subjeot. He is so occupied
with making sure through infinite repetition the ground
he has taken that he seldom goes deep. But whether he
makes any real progress or not, he generally goes with
the same dignified, ponderous step through every subject,
light or abstruse. If some of his writings remind one
of an organ, it is pertinent to observe that he uses the
full organ with its sonorous stateliness all of the time.
All of which is to say that Irving's style warns the
reader off at the first approach.
But if we may ignore this superficial obstruction,
it still remains true that what good is contained in the
many volumes from his hand is cast into the shadow by the
extravagances into which he fell. His wordy utterances
seem to lose what weight they may have when it is found
that the same writer speaks with perfect confidence of
the vials and trumpets of the Apocalypse and stands up
to defend the wild gibberish of modern gifts of tongues •
.
Can any sound good come from a mind so devoid of common
sense?
Then, to cap the climax of obscurity, we lose the
thread of the true and the valuable in Irving's writings
(1) Carlyle's Reminiscences.