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

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

CENTRE FOR RESEARCH COLLECTIONS EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GEORGE SQUARE EDINBURGH EH8 9LJ TEL: +44 (0)131 650 8379 FAX: +44 (0)131 650 2922 BOOK-SCANNED 2015 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 N.B. Scanned as single pages. Blank pages have been omitted. Orientation of copy as it appears in the original. THIS IS THE BEST COPY AVAILABLE. © Edinburgh University Library This PDF is supplied for the purpose of research and private study. No reproductions or further copies may be made without prior permission from Edinburgh University Library. Please address all enquiries to Centre for Research Collections. The Library wishes to be informed of work based on this Pdf copy, and would welcome a copy of any publication that makes use of it. The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336 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.

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