Glimpses of Christian History Presents Pastwords #165: Taking Irving to Task About His Reports of Speaking in Tongues by Rev. William Goode ©2007

1828 EPISODES QUESTIONED DESPITE CLAIMS OF DOCUMENTATION . . . .

he circumstances connected with the rise of those claims we are about to consider, shall be stated in the words of their principal supporter, the Rev. Edward Irving, at that time the minister of the National Scotch Church, Regent Square, London. "Four years ago, [i.e. about the beginning of the year 1828,] about the time of the opening of the National Scotch Church, when teaching to my people the orthodox and catholic doctrine of the holy sacraments, I showed from the constitution of Christian baptism, (Acts ii, 38, 39,) that the baptised church is still held by God to be responsible for the full and perfect gift of the Holy Ghost, as the same had been received by our blessed Lord upon his ascension unto glory, and by him shed down upon his church on the day of Pentecost, and by them exercised in all the ways recorded in the book of Acts, and the epistles of the holy apostles. . . . From that time to this, and indeed since ever I read the word of God for the building up of my own faith, I have never ceased to believe that the spiritual gifts and the spiritual office-bearers, as they are enumerated in Scripture, (I Cor. xii. 4-11; Eph. iv. 7-17. Rom. xii. 6-9. I Pet. iv. 10, 11, &c.) together with the various supernatural methods of operation recorded in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, are not accidental and temporary occurrences of a miraculous kind for certain special ends and occasions, but substantial and permanent forms of operation proper to the Holy Ghost, and in no wise to be separated from him or from the Church, which is his chosen residence and temple, the 'body of Christ' and the 'fulness of Him who filleth all in all.' With this faith firmly rooted in my heart, I did not doubt that the only reason for the disappearance of those endowments from the visible Church, or rather from the face of her history, was the evil heart of unbel____IS AS A GREAT HEAD OF CHRISTIAN FAITH, needful to be believed for the honour of the risen Lord, for the completeness of the Spirit's work, and for the consolation and establishment of the church; and I was never loath, on any fitting occasion, to maintain the argument with any of my clerical brethren. . . . The consequence of this distinct and explicit witness-bearing was to PREPARE A PEOPLE FOR RECEIVING THE MANIFESTATIONS when they did appear, and also to prepare my own mind for taking the decisive steps which I have taken, after I was persuaded that they were come into the midst of us. But while I was convinced so long ago of the undoubted right which the Church hath in all the manifestations of the Holy Ghost made by Christ and his apostles, and that her unfaithfulness was the only cause for their disappearance, it was not so clear to me that they would be restored again anterior to the time of his second advent. . . . If I had applied myself steadily to the resolution of this doubt, it would speedily have cleared away before the express promises of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. . . . But the way had to be prepared by the full preaching of CHRIST'S COMING IN OUR FLESH, and his coming again in glory -- the two great divisions of Christian doctrine which had gone down into the earth, out of sight and out of mind, and which must be revived by preaching, before the Holy Spirit could have anything to witness unto." -- The doctrine here alluded to is that which Mr. Irving began about this time to promulgate more openly and prominently respecting the human nature of our Lord, viz. that our Lord "took sinful flesh or fallen human nature"-- that he was "inclined to all those things which the law interdicted" --that he was "conscious of engaged with and troubled by every evil disposition which inhereth in the fallen manhood," &c. &c.; (Treat. on our Lord's Humanity;) that there was in Christ's flesh "a proclivity to the world and Satan" --and that "the law of the flesh was there all present." (Lett. to Baxter in his "Narrative," p. 107) These sentiments were condemned as heretical by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in May, 1832; and in May, 1832, his case was referred by that assembly to the consideration of the Presbytery of Annan, by whom he had been ordained, and by whom, in March, 1833, he was for this more particularly, with other errors, deposed from his ministerial office. I proceed with his narrative:-- "Thus we stood when the tidings of the restoration of the gift of tongues in the west of Scotland burst upon us like the morning star heralding the approach of day, and turned your speculations upon the true doctrine into the examination of a fact. . . . The particulars of the work in Scotland are as follow: -- In the west of Scotland, the thick and dark veil which men have cast over the truth had been taken away, chiefly by the preaching of that faithful man of God, John Campbell, late minister of Row, who was deposed by the last General Assembly, for teaching [Mr. Irving's doctrine of the work of redemption, or as Mr. Irving chooses here most unfaithfully to represent it] that God loves every man, and that Christ died to redeem all mankind. . . . To another preacher of the Gospel, [Mr. Scott,] now also deposed by the same Assembly for postponing the Confession of Faith to the Holy Scriptures, [i.e. for adopting and preaching Mr. Irving's interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, instead of that contained in the Confession of Faith,] presiding at present over the Scotch congregation at Woolwich, it was reserved to sow the seed which hath borne this precious fruit. He was at that time my fellow-labourer in the National Scotch Church, being our missionary to preach to the poor of this city; and as we went in and out together, he used often to signify to me his conviction that the spiritual gifts ought still to be exercised in the church'; that we are at liberty and indeed BOUND TO PRAY FOR THEM. . . . Towards the end of the year 1829, our excellent missionary, --whose mind God was more and more confirming on this head, and enabling to disentangle the subject of baptism with the Holy Ghost from the work of regeneration, with which it is commonly confounded, whereof the latter cometh from the incarnation, and the former from the glorification, of the Son of God -- being called down to Scotland upon some occasion, and residing for a while at his father's house, which is in the heart of that district of Scotland upon which the light of Mr. Campbell's ministry had arisen, HE WAS LED TO OPEN HIS MIND TO SOME OF THE GODLY PEOPLE IN THOSE PARTS, AND AMONG OTHERS TO A YOUNG WOMAN [Mary Campbell], WHO WAS AT THAT TIME LYING ILL OF A CONSUMPTION. . . . BY THIS YOUNG WOMAN IT WAS THAT GOD, NOT MANY MONTHS AFTER, DID RESTORE THE GIFT OF SPEAKING WITH TONGUES AND PROPHESYING TO THE CHURCH." Mr. Scott, indeed, failed to convince her at the time, but "left her with a solemn charge. . . to beware how she rashly rejected what he believed to be the truth of God," and accordingly it was not long before the fruit of this teaching appeared. "In the month of December of the same year, 1829, the handmaid of the Lord, to whom reference hath been made, was led by the Spirit of God to read with a new light that blessed portion of his word which is written in the 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of the Gospel according to John, and to find therein that seed of faith and hope which afterwards bore fruit in the manifestation of the Holy Ghost. . . . SHE CAME TO SEE WHAT FOR SIX OR SEVEN YEARS I HAD BEEN PREACHING IN LONDON, that all the works of Christ were done by the man anointed with the Holy Ghost, and not by the God mixing himself up with the man. . . . The effect of this discovery upon her, I have heard her tell, was such as to fill her soul by night and by day, for some time, to the exclusion almost of her natural rest. And these words of Peter's sermon to Cornelius were constantly in her mind:--- 'How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.' (Acts x. 38.) SHE STRAIGHTWAY ARGUED IF JESUS, AS A MAN IN MY NATURE, THUS SPAKE AND THUS PERFORMED MIGHT WORKS BY THE HOLY GHOST, WHICH HE EVEN PROMISETH TO ME, THEN OUGHT I, IN THE SAME NATURE, BY THE SAME SPIRIT, TO DO LIKEWISE THE WORKS WHICH HE DID, AND GREATER WORKS THAN THESE. I have now before me the original letter which she wrote to a friend soon after this, bearing date the 16th of January, 1830. . . . How surely the sound doctrines stated above had struck their roots into the heart of this young woman is made manifest from another letter, bearing date the 23rd of March, of which the original is still preserved, and lies now before me. . . . Sometime between the 23rd of March, 1830, the date of the letter from which the last extract is made, and the end of that month, on the evening of the Lord's day, the gift of speaking with tongues was restored to the Church. 'Then he restored that which he took not away.' (Ps. 1xix.) The handmaiden of the Lord, of whom he made choice on that night to manifest forth in her his glory, had been long afflicted with a disease, which the medical men pronounced to be a decline, and that it would soon bring her to her grave, whether her sister had been hurried by the same malady some months before. Yet while all around were anticipating her dissolution, she was in the strength of faith meditating missionary labours among the heathen; this night she was to receive the preparation of the Spirit,-- the preparation of her body she received not till some days after. It was on the Lord's day, and one of her sisters, along with a female friend, who had come to the house for that end, had been spending the whole day in humiliation, and fasting, and prayer before God, with a special respect to the restoration of the gifts. They had come up in the evening to the sick chamber of their sister, who was laid on a sofa, and, along with one or two others of the household, they were engaged in prayer together. When in the midst of their devotion, the Holy Ghost came with mighty power upon the sick woman, as she lay in her weakness, and constrained her to speak at great length, and with superhuman strength, in an unknown tongue."

Such is the account given to us by Mr. Irving of the origin of those claims to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit we are about to consider.

Here, then, I would earnestly beg the reader to pause, to observe the important fact disclosed to us in this narrative, viz. that the supposed restoration of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit of the Church took place in the person of a young woman (of a delicate and consumptive habit of body) who, some months before, had been led, through the instrumentality of Mr. Irving's assistant, to the belief that those gifts ought to be exercised by every believer, and that we are bound to desire and pray for them, and had accordingly made them the objects of her earnest and continual prayer, and who has some time previously imbibed those sentiments of Mr. Irving on our blessed Lord's human nature, which the whole Christian Church besides has pronounced awfully erroneous. I may also add, that the supposed gifts, as to any permanent reception of them, have exclusively followed in the track of those doctrines. I commend this fact to the consideration of the reader; but notice it only by the way, as my object is to investigate the nature of the manifestations themselves, independent of any of the circumstances with which they stand connected. My reason for this is, because such claims have been frequently made, and may probably be frequently revived, unconnected with such errors.

Of the young woman above-mentioned, it is right to add, (though the fact is of little or no consequence,) that the Morning Watch itself, the organ of the party of whom we are about to treat, speaks in one place but slightingly, as to judgment or solidity of mind; and certainly the memoir published of her sister, Isabella Campbell, contains sufficient proof that she partakes naturally of her sister's fervid temperament.

In the summer of that year, the same supposed gift was communicated to some members of a family named M'Donald, residing at Port Glasgow, of whom the earliest account we have is given in the Morning Watch, No. 8, p. 869, published December 1830. "Their whole deportment," says the narrator in the Morning Watch, "gives an impression not to be conveyed in words, that their organs are made use of by supernatural power. . . . They declare that their organs of speech are made use of by the Spirit of God, and that they utter that which is given to them, and not the expressions of their own conceptions, or their own intention."

In a short time, however, the scene of miraculous agency was transferred, apparently almost exclusively, to Mr. Irving's church in London; whose hearers, as he himself would say, had long been prepared for it by his preaching.

The remarkable, and indeed unparalleled peculiarity of this gift is, that no one has yet recognized it as "a tongue," nor is it understood by the person who utters it; so that all which has been, for the last many months, communicated by it to the Church, remains as much unknown as it was before it was thus communicated. Such a gift, therefore, is so far unparalleled, since all, as far as I can find, who have laid to the gift of tongues before, have spoken in some acknowledged language of the earth. At the very outset, then, we are called upon to take it for granted, without any evidence, that what is spoken is a real language, and that if nobody on earth will own it, it must be one used in heaven.

It was not long, however, before those who conceived themselves to have received the gift of tongues, assumed also that of prophecy; uttering their warnings, professedly under the constraining influence of a supernatural power, partly in what they call "the tongue," and partly in English.

In order to show the reader that the characteristics of these so-called gifts are such as we have hereafter described them to be, some extracts are inserted here from the statements that have been laid before the public by two impartial witnesses, who were for a time themselves led away; which I have endeavoured to select so as to give a full and authentic account of the matter. The first was published by a Mr. Pilkington, who, it appears, was for some time considered by Mr. Irving as being possessed of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit. Whatever opinion many be entertained of the judgment he displayed in the scenes of which his narrative speaks, (in which, however, it is difficult to see much inferiority to that manifested by his associates in them,) there is certainly nothing to impeach his veracity, and the tone of it is strongly characteristic of a well-meaning man. I shall give, therefore, a few extracts from it, merely as to some matters of fact, which are abundantly confirmed by other testimonies, and particularly by those which I shall subjoin from the other statement to which I have alluded. I would merely call the reader's attention to them, as containing a graphical delineation of some scenes which Mr. P. himself witnessed.

"During that period, I frequently heard exhortations [i.e. at Mr. Irving's church, at the early prayer-meetings, during nearly three months previous to Oct. 9, 1831,] from two individuals, one the brother, who continues to speak, the other a sister. . . . . The 'tongue' burst forth from the former with an astonishing and terrible crash, [which he describes, in a note, to be like as if Cras-cran-cra-craxh were uttered with a sudden and rapid vociferation,] so suddenly, and in such short sentences, that I seldom recovered the shock before the English commenced; and as the latter always chanted, it became difficult to discriminate the Tongue from the English; nevertheless I was enabled to observe many pious and prophetic expressions. . . . . This continued, without any remarkable occurrence, till about six weeks before the Sunday alluded to, [Oct. 9, 1831,] when the brother, after speaking in Tongue, concluded, without pausing, in English:-- 'O Britain! thou anointed of the Lord, thy destruction is at hand! Fear not, ye people of God!' These words were uttered, as usual, in an unearthly tone, which had the more imposing effect, by the posture he assumed, with his arm erect. Mr. Irving, after the solemn service which invariably succeeded these movements of the Spirit, praised God for having raised a prophet in the church, and commented on the prophecy. The sister, either on this or the following morning, prophesied that this country would be afflicted with plague and pestilence; which Mr. Irving noticed with the same deference and gratitude as he did the prophecy of the brother."

After describing several similar scenes, he proceeds:- "On Sunday the 9th of October [1831], I went to church at eleven and was as usual much gratified and comforted by Mr. Irving's lectures and prayers; but I was very unexpectedly interrupted by the well-known voice of one of the sisters, who finding she was unable to restrain herself, and respecting the regulation of the church, (for the permission given the day before, as now appeared, only extended to the prayer-meetings,) rushed into the vestry, and gave vent to utterance; whilst another (as I understood from the same impulse) ran down the side aisle, and out of the church, through the principal door. The sudden doleful and unintelligible sounds being heard by all the congregation produced the utmost confusion. . . . . Mr. Irving begged for attention, and when order was restored he explained the occurrence, which, he said, was not new, except in the congregation, where he had been for some time considering the propriety of introducing it; but though satisfied of the correctness of such a measure, he was afraid of dispersing the flock; nevertheless, as it was now brought forward by God's will, he felt it his duty to submit."

"In the evening. . . . . all went on quietly till the end of the sermon, when the brother was moved, and suddenly burst out the crash of tongue, followed by these words in English, 'God is amongst us, and if you fly from him now where will you fly in the day of judgment?'"

At a private interview in the ensuing week, Mr. Irving "said, that the gifted persons informed him that the power which compelled them to speak, acted on the 'end of their tongues.'" And again, on another occasion, when Mr. Irving was asked, "if they could not restrain the tongue, and utter the English, he said, 'No.'" To the same effect also speaks one of the "gifted" persons, as follows: --"The gifted brother now followed and accosted me. 'Pray, sir, are you the gentleman who spoke in the church on Monday?' "Yes, sir." "How did you feel, sir? could you avoid it, sir?' 'I think I could have avoided it.' 'Well, since you have confessed that, allow me to advise you not to speak again unless you cannot help it.'"

From this it will be seen that the person who gives this account, had himself spoken in the church, and the fact was, as he himself informs us, that the excitement produced by the scenes he there witnessed, produced occasionally an almost irresistible impulse to give vent to his emotions by utterance, and at times he conceived himself to have the gift of interpretation.

The occasional complete unconsciousness of the speaker, as to what was uttered, is clearly proved by the following remark of one of them, after the writer of this account had given what he thought an interpretation of her words-- He says, "I heard. . . . say to her neighbour, in a low voice, 'I didn't speak in English, did I?'"

At a private meeting at Mr. Irving's, where he was close to the parties who spoke, he thus describes the circumstances attending the delivery:-

"There was a solemn silence. . . . . On surveying the party, I soon perceived that the gifted sister. . . was about to speak by the violent agitation or working of her whole frame, of which it is difficult to give a written description without appearing to ridicule the parties, which is very far from being my intention. . . . . however, as I write for the information of the Christian reader, I will explain that her whole frame was in violent agitation, but principally the body, from the hips to the shoulders, which worked with a lateral motion, the chest heaved and swelled, the head was occasionally raised from the right hand, which was placed under the forehead, whilst the left hand and arm seemed to press and rub the stomach. She was but a few seconds in this state, when the body stayed, the neck became stiff, and the head erect; the hands fell on the lap, the mouth assumed a circular form, the lips projected, and the 'tongue,' and English, came from her in an awful tone. During the utterance I observed a violent exertion of the muscles at the back of the jaw-bone, and that the stiffened lips never touched to aid the articulation of the 'tongue;' but they closed sufficiently to express the labials of the English part of the delivery, and instantly resumed the circular form." --"Gifted sister. . . now spoke, but uttered nothing in tongue, except half a dozen musical tones. (Solemn silence.) Gifted sister. . . . spoke entirely in English. (Silence.) The gifted brother spoke in tongue and English."

He proceeds to detail the particulars of various other similar scenes, both in the public services and the private prayer-meetings, at Mr. Irving's church.

The confirmation of these particulars may be found in statements from persons present, inserted in most of the periodical papers of the time, especially the Record newspaper. Similar statements, also, may be found interspersed in them up to the present time. One relating to Mrs. Caird (the late Miss Campbell) may be found in the Record for December 20, 1832, giving an account of her speaking "in tongue," in the middle of her husband's sermon at his chapel at Brighton, a few days previous.

The other publication to which I have referred, is a valuable "Narrative of Facts" published about a year ago by a gentleman, who for some time was one of the principal speakers of the party, but now considers himself to have been, with his associates, under a delusion. The following extracts are well worth the reader's attention. The education and piety of the writer entitle his testimony to our implicit confidence and respect, as to the facts of the case.

"In the midst of the feeling of awe and reverence which this [his first witnessing "the power" in another] produced, I was myself seized upon by the power; and in much struggling against it was made to cry out, and myself to give forth a confession of my own sin in the matter for which we were rebuked, and afterwards to utter a prophecy that the messengers of the Lord should go forth publishing to the ends of the earth, in the mighty power of God, the testimony of the near coming of the Lord Jesus.

I was conscious of a constrained utterance not my own.

I was under such a painful constraint, that every word I uttered was, as it were, wrung from me.

I cannot for a moment [he says, in a letter to his brother written while under the delusion] doubt the reality of the manifestations; and the Spirit secretly bears witness with my own spirit that he has spoken in me, and leads me to the expectation that he may yet again constrain my utterance.

By a constraint I cannot describe I was made to speak.

This prayer. . . was forced from me by the constraint of the power which acted upon me; and the utterance was so loud, that I put my handkerchief to my mouth to stop the sound, that I might not alarm the house.

When teaching at a Sunday School, the power came upon me in the way of constraint: constraining me to leave and return to my study.

The power fell upon me, and I was made to speak; and for two hours or upwards, with very little interval, the power continued upon me, and I gave forth what we all regarded as prophecies concerning the church and the nation -- declaring God's anger rested upon the nation because of its wickedness and infidelity. . . that the visitation of Pharaoh would come upon the land, and it would be as a charnel-house for the multitude of the slain. On the church the denouncements against the unfaithful pastors were most fearful -- that it was flowing on into the power of the enemy, and falling from its office of God's witness in the earth. These prophecies were mingled with others most glorious and gracious, as they appeared to us -- declaring the Spirit should be abundantly poured forth . . . that the Lord was at hand -- the morning star arising among us, and the signs of his coming all around us. The power which then rested on me was far more mighty than before, laying down my mind and body in perfect obedience.

All was the work of the moment, AND I WAS AS THE PASSIVE INSTRUMENT OF THE POWER WHICH USED ME.

To several questions which were asked, answers were given by me in the power. One in particular was so answered, with such reference to the circumstances of the case of which in myself I was wholly ignorant, as to convince the person who asked it that the spirit speaking in me knew those circumstances, and alluded to them in the answer.

The interpretation was wholly unthought of by me before I was made to speak it, and the light on the mind and conviction was not given me, but I was made to speak the words, and was left to gather and connect the meaning, and confirm myself in the truth of it.

On another occasion, unknown to each other, we [himself and his wife] each received at the same time a revelation concerning some of our kindred, which shewed us the work of a spirit upon us.

I found on a sudden in the midst of my accustomed course, a power coming upon me which was altogether new -- an unnatural, and in many cases a most appalling utterance given to me -- matters noticed by me in this power of which I had never thought, and many of which I did not understand until long after they were uttered -- an enlarged comprehension and clearness of view given to me on points which were really the truth of God, (though mingled with many things which I have since seen not to be truth, but which then had the form of truth)-- great setting out of Christ -- great joy and freedom in prayer -- and seemingly great nearness of communion with God in the midst of the workings of the power -- the course of the power quite contrary to the course of excitement. It was manifest to me the power was supernatural; it was therefore a spirit. It seemed to me to bear testimony to Christ, and to work the fruits of the Spirit of God. The conclusion was inevitable, that it was the Spirit of God; and, if so, the deduction was immediate, that it ought in all things be obeyed. If I UNDERSTOOD NOT THE WORDS I WAS MADE TO UTTER, it was consistent with the idea of the utterances of the Spirit, that deep and mysterious things should be spoken. If I were commanded to do a thing of which I saw not the use, was I to dare to pause upon God's command? If, indeed, the thing were clearly contrary to God's truth, it would have been clear God had not spoken it; but if it was a thing indifferent, surely (I reasoned) God is to be obeyed. If any one is once persuaded that the Spirit of God speaks in him by any particular mode of communication, it will henceforth be his study only to discern that he does not mistake his own feelings and impulses for that communication. Looking back upon it now, I can only say, all this demonstration of truth and holiness would not have been permitted to deceive us if we had not forgotten the text, 'as an angel of light.'

When I had read this, and was thinking upon it, the power came upon me, and I was made to say, 'The word of the Lord is as fire; and if ye, O vessel who speak, refuse to speak the word, ye shall utterly perish, &c.'

A prophecy was given to me. . . . that the Spirit was not taken from faithful men in the church, but from the visible church as a body. That the whole visible church was now cast off as God's church, and God would bring forth his spiritual church with the fulness of the gifts of the Spirit. . . . The condemnation proceeded upon the fact of the quenching of the Spirit in the midst of our church.

At the end of the three years and a half from the beginning of the prophecy of the witnesses. . . Satan should take to himself the sovereignty, and stand forth in all hideous power in the person of one man, to receive the worship of all the earth;-- that this, in particular and in fulness, was 'the man of sin whom,' &c. . . . . . . The person who should be so energized of Satan, and be set up as his Christ, was at a subsequent period declared to be young napoleon.

Concerning the Bible Society, a distinct burden of prophecy was given;-- that it was the curse going through the land, quenching the Spirit of God by the letter of the word of God.

As I was about to enter the church the power filled me . . . . . the utterance broke forth from me in a sever rebuke. . . . . This was followed by a short recapitulation of matters which had been on former occasions uttered concerning God's casting off the visible church . . . . . God's purpose of endowing and sending forth through the land, and to the ends of the earth, ministers speaking in power as I was speaking; and of filling them with all power in mighty signs and wonders, to bear his last warning to the world, and to prepare a people, before the great and terrible day of the Lord. I was then made to give forth a distinct command to all present, and to all who should hear it, to go forth and declare wherever the providence of God should open a place of testimony to them, the near coming of Christ, and the coming in of the spiritual ministry.

I was made to declare, I should minister in his church on Sunday, and then should be begun the spiritual ministrations, which would never cease until the Lord should come. . . . . The power came upon me in an exhortation to the people. . . . that the Lord was at hand; and as a witness to his people, God was now sending forth a ministry, not ministering in the flesh but in the spirit, who should teach and minister in the utterance of the Spirit, and in due time be endowed with all the mighty power of the Spirit. . . . . The power came down again upon me, and I read in great power the 61st chapter of Isaiah, and preached in the power for upwards of an hour. . . . . Fearful denunciations of judgment were given both morning and evening, and the reiterated declaration that within three years and a half the believers in the Lord would be caught up to him, and the world delivered over to the judgments of God. Much as was the false prophecy which was mixed up with these testimonies, and fearful as was the assumption of speaking by the utterance of the Spirit, I have been much confounded by the fact occurring in this instance, as also in most others of the public testimonies in preaching; that Christ was preached in such power and with such clearness, and the exhortations to repentance so energetic and arousing, that it is hard to believe the person delivering it could be under the delusion of Satan. Yet so it was.

The power was present to. . . . bear me up with the thought; 'yet three years and a half, and we shall be joined in the glory of the Lord.'

Concerning this individual, it was shown to me more than once in the form of revelation, and twice was it declared in utterance that he should be brought to acknowledge the work, and be himself a minister in it. This, however, has never come to pass.

The interpretation so given [i.e. by "the power"] was, that the 'woman in heaven' was the spiritual church as contradistinguished from the visible church -- the symbol of the visible church being found in the next chapter as the 'beast rising out of the earth.' By the spiritual church was meant the members of the church who were partakers of the Spirit of God [of course in their sense of the phrase].

In the utterance at this time there was a further opening of these four trumpets. . . . reiterating. . . . . that the Reform Bill would not pass, that the people thought they had it, but it should not pass. . . . that the great captain of Waterloo would again be made prime minister; and that it was he who should take to pieces the constitution, and be the instrument of fulfilling the third and fourth trumpets.

I attended a monthly meeting. . . . . for reading and expounding the Scriptures. . . . . The part of Scripture which was at that time appointed for consideration was from Ephesians: 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but,' &c. . . . When in my turn I spoke upon the text, I was more particularly led to set out the craftiness and deceivableness [deceitfulness] of Satan as an angel of light; and as I proceeded, the power came upon me, carrying forward the exposition, and showing how Satan, taking to himself the guise of the Spirit, worked among all professors, and even amongst God's own people; not simply through the world and the flesh introducing himself, but more particularly in the form of suggestions through the senses, and by spiritual workings upon the mind, raised imaginations, fostered pride, and wrung from us worship and service to himself, whilst we persuaded ourselves we were following the teaching of the Spirit. . . . At this time. . . the display of this truth was used to rivet me and those with me in the power of the enemy. After this scripture had been opened, the power in me passed on to a prophecy upon the state of the church -- setting out that she was ensnared by the enemy -- declaring and denouncing the judgments of God which were coming upon her and all the earth; and most fearfully warning all ministers to stand up in their places and teach these things; and declare also what had been revealed by the prophets to the church, that within three years and a half the saints would be caught up to the Lord and the earth wholly given up to the days of vengeance. . . The power then passed into a prophecy of the development of the mystical man of sin, and of the personal man of sin in the person of young Napoleon. . . . The friend at whose house we were assembled, had called in his servants; and when I ceased, and we were about to separate, he began to say a few words to explain to them what had been prophesied, when the power fell upon him, and he was carried out manifestly beyond himself; and (as he describes his own feelings) without any expectation of it; and, when the power came upon him, without knowing what he had to say or do, but giving utterance as he was constrained. The purport of his utterance was confirming what had been said upon the rapture of the saints within three years and a half.

Subsequently to this came utterances preparing us for some great favour and grace, which it was said the Lord had ordained for us, bidding us enlarge our hearts, lest through the abundance of God's grace and favour we should stumble in unbelief, as though the promise was too great for us -- adding a striking expostulation with the church for hardness of heart and slowness to believe all that the prophets had spoken -- and concluding that we were all straitened in our own bowels, whilst the Lord's love was unbounded, and the Lord was hindered by the want of faith, in his love, from doing far greater things for his church and people than had yet been seen. . . . . At the interval of a day or two there followed an appalling utterance -- that the Lord had set me apart for himself -- that from the day I was called to the spiritual ministry I must count forty days -- that this was now well nigh expired -- that for those forty days was it appointed I should be tried -- that the Lord had tried me and found me faithful; and having now proved in me the first sign of an apostle, 'patience,' (referring to 2 Cor. xii. 12,) he would give to me the fulness of them in the gifts of 'signs and wonders and mighty deeds,'-- that the Lord had called me to be an apostle, and by the laying [on] of my hands, and the hands of the other apostles whom the Lord should call, should the baptism of fire be bestowed. . . . On the fortieth day power should be given, the sick should be healed, the deaf should hear, the dead should be restored. . . . . . This full development took place on the Friday preceding the fortieth day, which would fall on a Wednesday. . . . . On the Monday I went to town, and reaching it on the Tuesday morning, I joined the early prayer-meeting. In my way to town I passed by the clergyman. . . . who. . . spoke in the power at his own house. . . . He told me he had had a revelation. . . . The power came greatly on me, and I spoke two words in an unknown tongue, the meaning of which was not given me. . . . . I joined the prayer-meeting in London. . . . Mr. Irving called on me to read and pray with them. Whilst I was talking to him the power came on me, and I was made to give him and the congregation assembled a most severe rebuke, and then indistinctly to allude to that which had been prophesied concerning the immediate gift of signs and wonders. . . . . On the morrow, at the morning prayer-meeting, nothing peculiar occurred. At breakfast several strangers to me were present, and having been made to give forth what seemed a most glorious prophecy concerning the endowments which would attend upon the spiritual apostles whom the Lord would now send forth, in how much they would exceed the endowments given to the twelve apostles, it was distinctly shown me in the power, before any one had spoken, that some one person in the room had a mind which utterly repudiated what was so prophesied. . . . . . A voice at the top of the room struck me, and it was shown me he was the man. I said so to him, and requested him to speak. He did speak out, and showed very strikingly how exactly his state of mind had been opened to me. . . I had never seen the man, nor to my knowledge heard the sound of his voice, before I told out the state of his mind; and as soon as I heard the sound of his voice, I recognized him as the person referred to. It operated as a confirmatory sign to those who believed in the work, and I can only explain it upon the text before quoted, (Deut. xiii.), as a sign permitted of the Lord to prove us. The day, however, passed over without any manifestation of the power which had been foretold.

The next day. . . . I attended the services, and was made to speak much in power in the midst of the congregation, declaring. . . . that the utter desolution of the land was decreed by the Lord, and judgment only now lingered; and then I was made to pronounce 'the decree. Thus saith the Lord, within three years and a half this land shall be desolate.' . . . . The effect produced upon the congregation seemed to be very great. . . . . Mr. Irving. . embraced me as I joined him in the vestry, and before his elders and a part of his congregation, broke out into a thanksgiving to God for having sent such light into the midst of them. He seemed from this time without a doubt that the work which had been foretold would immediately proceed, and began to preach and teach from his pulpit the interpretation of the trumpets and the doctrine of the baptism by fire, and forthcoming apostolic mission.

From the time of my first public exercise of the power, it will be observed from what has been before detailed, how strongly the distinction was taken between my ministrations and the ministrations of commonly ordained ministers - - mine being called the spiritual ministry, theirs the fleshly ministry. The same distinction was carried through the church also -- the church receiving the ministry of the prophets speaking by the utterance of the Spirit was called the spiritual church, in contradistinction to the visible church.

In subsequent utterances it became confirmed that the spiritual church could not be fully constituted until the full powers of an apostle were given, and of this we were now in daily, and, I may say, hourly expectation, as the day for which they were promised was passed, and we could find no satisfactory explanation of the delay.

It was distinctly revealed in the power, and I was made to utter, that the American Indians were the lost ten tribes, and that they should within the three years and a half appointed for the spiritual ministry be gathered back into their own land, and be settled there before the days of vengeance set in -- that the chief, who was now in London, was a chosen vessel of the Lord to lead them back -- that he should be endowed with power from on high in all signs and mighty wonders, and should lead them back, though in unbelief -- that he would receive his power here, and be speedily sent forth to them. . . . On another evening . . I was made in a most triumphant chant to address him as the vessel chosen of God, and to be endowed of God for the bringing back of his brethren. . . . . The chief went away to his countrymen, an unbeliever in the work, and none of the powers have been at all manifested.

They [i.e. Mr. Irving and his followers] are now avowedly exercising apostolic functions upon the mere command of the voice, without pretending to have the signs of an apostle 'in signs and wonders and mighty deeds;' and the individual who has been thus set apart for the apostolic office prays in their meetings in the following strain:-- 'Lord, am I not thine apostle? yet where are the signs of my apostleship? where are the wonders and mighty deeds? O Lord, send them down upon us,' &c. He has, as an apostle, and in the name of an apostle, laid hands on several, and ordained them to the ministerial office as evangelists and elders; yet it is not pretended that the manifestation of the baptism of the Holy Ghost follows with the laying on of his hands.

A clergyman who . . . had come expressly to inquire . . . was present . . . . professed his faith in the work, and I was made to tell him he was doubting, and was not confirmed in it. And I have since heard that he was in so much doubt, that when he came to consider he abandoned the work as delusion. Whilst under the awe of the presence of the supernatural power, he was so confounded or overcome, as to profess full faith in it, and believe himself to be really receiving it.

I returned into the country . . . On the fourth day after my return. . . a power came upon her [his wife] in the form of revelation . . . . giving to her a reason why the powers, and signs, and wonders, were not bestowed upon the fortieth day, and assuring her of great blessings from the Lord, and a speedy fulfillment of what had been prophesied. It was also told her as a sign to prove this revelation to be of God, that as soon as I came home, when she came to me, I should say, 'Speak, speak;' and then, after she had told me the revelation, I should speak to her in the power, and beginning, 'It is of the Lord,' should fully explain what had been revealed to her. When I came home, I thought she seemed much troubled, and, unconscious of what had occurred, I said, 'Speak, speak.' Upon this she told me the revelation, not saying any thing about my speaking afterwards, and when she had told me, the power immediately came upon me to utterance, and I was made to say, in great power, 'It is of the Lord,' and then to open and explain it.

In the utterance which followed, it was declared that the power was not given on the fortieth day, because the church in London had failed in love towards the visible church which God had cast off. . . . . Then followed in the power a most emphatic declaration, that on the day after the morrow we should both be baptized with fire -- so should we be joined together in the bond of the Lord's baptism -- the Lord also joining himself to his desolate church again, by bringing forth visibly a spiritual church, with spiritual ordinances in fulness of power and gifts -- that had the church in London manifested greater love, this baptism and power would have been given there, but now it should be given here, and on the day named we should receive it, and thenceforward would the work proceed in swiftness and not again tarry . . . . . The day named arrived, and in the evening an utterance from the power, 'Kneel down, and receive the baptism by fire.' We knelt down, lifting up prayer to God continually. Nothing however ensued. Again and again we knelt, and again and again we prayed, but still no fulfilment. . . . For six weeks . . . . I continued unshaken to seek after it, but found it not. The baptism by fire was fully explained in utterance, to be the burning out of the carnal mind and subduing every sinful lust of the flesh. . . . that the fulness of the presence of the Holy Ghost should accompany it . . . . that the gifts of the Spirit would also follow . . . . that it was a baptism specially reserved for the three years and a half of the last ministry upon earth.

From the time of my return from town the difficulties and perplexities seemed, on all sides, to increase. A few days after I left him, Mr. Irving forwarding me a letter, added a few lines of his own . . . . stating how they looked forward to my return with the full powers of an apostle; but at the same time adding that Mr. F., who had spoken in power amongst us, had been found to speak by an evil spirit, Mrs. C. and Miss E. C. having been made so to declare. This troubled me greatly, for I had been made in power to declare to him his call to the spiritual ministry . . . . . After a short interval came a letter from Mr. Irving, which yet more perplexed me. He said, 'This moment the Lord hath sent me a very wonderful and wonderfully gracious message by our dear sister, Miss E. C., concerning the time which you have been made so often to put forth. Rebuking me for having repeated it. . . . declaring the word to be a true word, but containing a mystery, declaring the word to be a true word, but containing a mystery, declaring that the day is not known.' . . . . . I was amazed at this message, for constantly had I been made in power to declare the time, and to explain it and enforce it; and more than once I had been made to enjoin ministers publicly to preach it in the flesh, though they had no gift. . . . . A little later came another blow -- intelligence was sent me that Miss H., who had for months been received as a prophetess among them, -- (who had been the first to speak in the Sunday congregation, and whose speaking Miss E. C. on that occasion was made in power to declare, ought to be heard: to whom, also, I in power had spoken as a prophetess; and on a second occasion, Miss E. C. had alluded, as speaking of the Lord,) -- that she had by Miss E. C. and Mrs. C. been charged with feigning utterances, and they in power had pronounced that the whole work in her was of the flesh and not of the Lord. I had heard her speak, and her utterance seemed tome at times as full and as clearly supernatural as Miss E. C.'s. -- She had also begun a prophecy which Miss E. C. would take up and complete, and she would take up in power what Miss E. C. had begun, so as to cause Mr. Irving to remark how manifestly one spirit spoke in both. . . . Added to all this, the fast-day passed over, and not withstanding all the prophecies marking it out as a day much to be remembered, and the day of the Lord's answer by fire, nothing had occurred upon it. . . . Upon my return from town I saw again the friend whose attempt to perform a miracle had failed. . . . I was made, on several occasions, to speak in power to him, and declare that the message to perform the miracle was of the Lord, and . . . that it should yet be fulfilled. . . The person on whom the miracle was to be performed is dead, never having been in the least degree restored. Distressing as all these occurrences were, yet I dared not, on account of them, suffer myself to deny the work. The supernatural nature of it was so clear -- the testimony to Jesus so full -- the outpouring of prayer, and, as it seemed to me, the leading towards communion with God so constant in it, that I still could not condemn it, but teated every doubt as a temptation. I rested implicitly upon the text, 'Every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God,' and felt assured that no spirit making that confession could be of Satan.

Whilst upon this point it is necessary I should refer to a remarkable occurrence in Gloucestershire, which served to sustain my faith in the verbal confession, as an unfailing trial of the spirit. In the latter end of the past year, [1831,] two children of a pious and exemplary clergyman there, had been made to speak by a supernatural power. They were twins, a boy and a girl, and only eight or nine years of age, children in whom nothing of a religious turn had been remarked. Their parents were unfortunately led to seek after the manifestations, believing them to be of the Spirit of God. From the time the mouths of the children were opened, their conduct seemed so much changed, that they appeared most religious and devoted children. Their utterance was most astounding; beginning in the setting forth of Jesus, and calling to self-abasement before his cross; and preaching with such recital of Scripture and such power of argument and exhortation, as might be said to surpass many able ministers, and certainly quite out of the compass of children of their age and understanding. Having by this demonstration of power, of truth, and holiness, gained the confidence of their parents, and friends, they were carried on to deliver prophecies of things which were coming to pass -- then uttering commands to their parents and friends, and sending them here and there -- denouncing the judgments of God upon the church and world, and setting a day for a particular manifestation of judgment. -- Shortly things were spoken by them which seemed to their parents contrary to Scripture, and they were startled by an utterance forbidding to marry. This was so plainly the work of a false spirit, that their parents and friends were greatly distressed, and though much awed by the influence which the power had obtained over them, they remembered they had forgotten the command, 'try the spirits,' and they wished to try the spirit in the children by the Scripture test. They accordingly called the boy and told him their doubts, and that they must try the spirit. The boy seemed to be much wrought upon by the power, and in the supernatural utterance said, 'Ye may try the spirits in men, but ye may not try the spirits in children. Ye will surely be punished.' They however persisted; though the father was so much agitated as not to be able to do it; yet the curate addressed the spirit in the child, and demanded, in the words of Scripture, a confession that Christ was come in the flesh. Paleness and agitation increased over the child, till an utterance broke from him, 'I will never confess it.' They were thus satisfied it was an evil power which spoke in him, and the curate went on to say, 'I command thee, thou false spirit, in the name of Jesus, to come out of the child.' As the child afterwards described his feelings, he felt as though a coldness was removed from his heart and passed away from him. . . . . This narrative, which I first saw in print, has been confirmed to me by one who was an eye and ear witness of the whole. . . . . In these children, at least, neither excitement nor imagination can account for it."

He observes in a subsequent part of his work, that "when Mr. Irving heard of the occurrence in Gloucestershire, he thought it right to call together the gifted persons to try the spirit," and that they all uttered a confession, which Mr. Irving considered "tantamount to a confession of Christ come in the flesh, "he justly observes that "a mere verbal confession is not all that is required," and also, "as fully proving the inadequacy of Mr. Irving's test of the spirit, even to himself, it is a fact that Miss H., who is now declared by the other gifted persons to have been a false prophetess, was one of those who, in this trial, joined in the confession.

Continuing, however, in the exercise of this power," he was at last "led to an examination of doctrines." His persuasion had been, "that Mr. Irving did not hold the law of sin to be in Jesus," but, from some communications made to him, being "led to search more fully into the views he held," he "not only found on the further reading of his work that his views were unsound on the human nature of our Lord, but that he was also still more unsound on the doctrines concerning holiness -- he rejecting the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, and holding a perfect holiness in the flesh.

I sat down," he says, "to write to Mr. Irving, stating fully his error in conceiving the law of sin to be in the flesh of Jesus, and stating, also, what I conceived to be the truth concerning our holiness. . . . . As Mr. Irving regarded me destined to the apostolic office and set for the instruction of his church, I had great confidence that he would receive this." Mr. Irving, in his reply, warmly supports his own views, and tells him, "the spirit came upon Miss E. C., and after speaking in a very grieved tone and spirit in a tongue, she was made to declare. . . . that you had been snared by departing from the word and the testimony -- that I had maintained the truth, and the Lord was well pleased with me for it," which was followed by a similar utterance from Mrs. C. and a renewed utterance to the same effect from Miss E. C. "This letter," he adds, "was at once a great blow to me. Here I saw doctrines which I could never have believed Mr. Irving held, not only avowed by him, but sustained and enforced by the utterance in power of those who were deemed the gifted persons." "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 those 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 were 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 utterance of his prophets, and 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 nonfulfilment 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?. . . Being anxious to communicate with Mr. Irving I travelled on to 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. . . . I saw him again in the evening, and on the succeeding morning I endeavoured to convince him of his error of doctrine, and of 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 upon him also, the non-fulfilment 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., 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 in English, spoken English, spoken evil of Mr. Irving, and Miss E. C. had since in utterance declared he spoke it of Satan . . . . . The argument upon 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."

"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.

There are some general characteristics in the work which, apart from doctrines or instances of failure of predictions, cast suspicion upon it. One is the extreme secresy enjoined by the Spirit, and the manifest shrinking from public examination. . . . . . Another is, the manifest denouncement and debasement of the understanding. . . . . It is manifest, the grace of God, and the teaching of the Spirit of God, purifies and enlarges the understanding, and gives us to discover by the understanding between truth and error. The understanding, therefore, humbled before the Word and the Spirit of the Lord, is yet used and strengthened by the same Word and Spirit, and the man of God walks according to an enlightened understanding, in the degree of light which God vouchsafes to give him. Now I am assured, both from the remembrance of my own utterances in power, and from those of others, as well as from the later correspondence with the gifted persons, that the Spirit manifested in us all, has always striven to put aside the understanding, and bring its followers into an absolute submission to the utterances. . . . . Another characteristic is, the bitterness of denunciation and hastiness of spirit found in the manifestations of the power. . . . . The last characteristic to which I would allude, is, the spirit of separation which marks out a line by the reception or rejection of the utterances -- all who bow to the utterances are received; those who cannot are not acknowledged, but after the first and second admonition are rejected. The effect of this is very extraordinary: it casts off, under the name of Babylon, the great mass even of orthodox professors, and raises up the little church which does receive the utterances, into the distinctive title of 'The Church.'"

"Whilst, however, I am constrained to declare these convictions concerning the spirit. . . . I must speak very differently both of Mr. Irving himself, and also of those of his congregation who speak in the power, and others whom I have met there . . . . I believe him to be a man of God sincerely searching after truth, though for the casting down of high thoughts, and for vindicating his own truth, God has suffered him to led away of delusion. . . He is confident in his own honesty of intention in all that he has done, not being yet sufficiently versed in the deceitfulness of the heart and the subtlety of that pride which clothes itself in the garb of holy zeal, and plumes its own crest under the name of contending for the truth of God. His mind is so imaginative as almost to scorn precision of ideas.

As considerable stress has occasionally been laid upon this form of utterance, [i.e. "in other languages,"] in support of the work, I will here allude to it. 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 restrained it, my conviction being, that until something was set before me to utter, I ought not to yield my tongue to utterance. . . . . . . Immediately following 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. . . . . . 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. . . My persuasion concerning the unknown tongue, as it is called, (in which I myself was very little exercised,) 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; though I can conceive, when the power is very great, that it will assume much of the form of a connected oration.

The instances . . . . obvious discernment of thoughts are so numerous as to take away the possibility of their being accidental coincidences. In the case of one individual, when praying in silence in her own room, in three or four distinct instances, answers were given in the power by a gifted person sitting in the adjoining room; and in almost all the persons with whom I have conversed, who were brought into a belief of the power, instances of obvious discernment of their thoughts, or references to their particular state of mind, have been so striking as to conduce to their recognition of the power.

The whole work is a mimicry of the gifts of the Spirit -- the utterance in tongues a mimicry of the gift of tongues -- and so of the prophesyings and all the other works of the power. It is Satan as an angel of light, imitating, as far as permitted, the Holy Spirit of God.

It has been most fully manifested that a false spirit does bear witness against Satan. The warnings against Satan, given by the children in Gloucestershire, were very abundant, and the same occurred in Mr. F., Miss H., and almost without exception all the others who have spoken in power in the Scotch church, and have been rejected as false prophets.

I understand the gifted persons at Port Glasgow spoke against me, whilst I was speaking in power in London; and that they are now speaking against Mr. Irving. At Cambridge too, I understand, is one who deems himself called to be an apostle, and to have arrived at perfection; and who sent for a friend some hundred miles off to impart to him the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of his hands; but when he came, and the hands were imposed, the gift did not follow. He also is denounced by Miss E. C., and himself holds Mr. Irving and the gifted in London, to be deceived. These discrepancies and disagreements are so many landmarks which he who runs may read.

In conclusion, I cannot refrain from adding a remark or two upon the causes which have, as it appears to me, prepared the way for this awful delusion. . . . In the front I would place a habit of speculating upon religious truths, in the hasty interpretation of Scripture, and especially the prophetic portions. . . Another course of speculation has been upon doctrines and generally received truths, in an opening of them after a new method, or in the giving a greater prominency to particular parts. . . . . Whether the departure in doctrine has been the fruit of speculation, or however it may have had its origin, this seems to be the door through which the enemy has come in upon us. The subtlety of the heresy is very great, both as it regards the humanity of our Lord and the holiness of the believer. But the first branch of the heresy virtually annuls the test of the Spirit, by enabling a false spirit to confess an incarnation without holding the truth of Christ come in the flesh. And the second branch challenges the possession of the Spirit in the same fulness and power as he dwelt in Christ. . . . One circumstance of these manifestations cannot but force itself upon observation; that is, the continual use which was made of the doctrine of the second advent of our Lord. This was the leading theme of the utterances. The nearness of it, its suddenness, and the fearful judgments which were used to excite our minds and stimulate our decision, as well as to support us under difficulties, and to induce us to lay all other things aside to further the work. The same thing has, as far as we are informed, attended every putting forth of assumed prophetic power from the earliest times."