"In the same light also do I see the sending forth Evangelists unordained, which was the slighting of Jesus the apostle, in his apostles, to whom it appertaineth to send forth. (G) In all these things I grievously sinned against the Lord, and you with me. We were blinded. We were unwatchful. We were covetous. We were contented to be made rich. We thought not upon the poverty of others. We were impatient of the government of apostles, and of the Lord in them. We sought independence as a church, and but for the grace of God, we had reaped the very independence of Satan. God saw that it was not in our heart to do these things: He saw that nothing was further from our hearts: that we had been taken through our simplicity, by the craft of the devil, and therefore he had mercy upon us, and began to take the veil from off our eyes by the hand of his apostles, to whom he gave timeous discernment of these things, with utterance of that which they discerned: but I confess for myself, that I was very slow, yea, and reluctant to turn back from my evil way; whereto I do trace the heavy chastisement of the love of my God: and the Lord hath declared that there was the same cleaving to the evil thing in the elders and in the people. Let us now, my dear children, be of one mind to put it away with abhorrence and loathing, that we should have been found in such deceivableness, and so fearfully deceived. For I am assured, that though the Lord showed us at the last communion such a token for good, it was unto the awakening of us by his redeeming love, to consider our past ways, and with haste to turn our feet into the way of his commandments. But if we remain in a state of lethargy, not laying the thing to heart, nor truly repenting of it, I know not with what new and more severe trials He will try both you and me. I have a good hope, however, in my heart, that there will be an awakening to understand the purpose of the Lord, and patiently to (G) p. 91. lest wait it. Yet am I not without my fears for some, they turn aside from the way of the Lord, and abide in their former ways, which are not good. "Oh! remember, my beloved, that we are not what we were, when the Lord's word did find us: we are called, and chosen, and set apart to a great work which the Lord seeketh to accomplish in and by us, and for all his church, yea, for all the world. We may not dwell in our ceiled houses: we may not abide by the sheepcotes: still less may we lie down beside the flesh-pots of Egypt, but we must gird up the loins of our mind and go forward. 66 We must bear the burden of the Lord: we must remember that his presence is in the midst of us, and take off the shoes from our feet, because the place whereon we stand is holy ground. (H) It is the word of the Lord which we have received to keep holy, and to obey. And blessed be the Lord that he hath kept the witness of the Spirit in the midst of us, and reproved every one who hath been betrayed into any mingling of his word. Oh! reverence the word of the Lord whenever it is spoken amongst you. Ye elders reverence it; ye people reverence it. Cry for the prophet* for he was a chosen vessel. Hold ye him against his own rebellious heart. Let him not go; and if he will not return, oh! be ye guiltless of his fall. For myself, while I am conscious of being led about by the Lord among his servants, and of being used by him in giving them counsel, I am also conscious of his hand abiding upon me; nor do I expect to see it removed until we have together thoroughly repented of our sin, and been cleansed from it in our inward parts. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. "Your faithful and loving Pastor, " EDWARD IRVING." (H) p. 93. * Mr. Taplin. 66 'Keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power mightily."—Nah. ii. 1. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."―Jude, 3. OBSERVATIONS. THE prosperity of Zion, and the spiritual health of her children, must ever be paramount considerations with all who have any just conceptions of the infinite price at which she has been ransomed from the power of a malicious and crafty adversary; whose efforts are unceasingly exerted, to beguile her out of that precious undefiled highway, which the Lord of glory has cast up for her, with so much labour and travail, humiliation, and suffering. Who can view with indifference, the rapid rise, and wide diffusion of vital errors, which have issued out of the bosom of the Scotch church; poisoning the minds of some of her own brightest ornaments, and contaminating ministers of high promise and usefulness, both in the national establishment, and in dissenting congregations; occasioning discord in families, separating husbands and wives, destroying the peace and harmony of social life; sapping the foundations of our most holy religion, and laying them again, upon the corruptible basis of a peccable incarnate Saviour, a fleshly Holy Ghost, and false apostles and prophets ! The melancholy epistle in which Mr. Irving unburdens his conscience, presents an undeniable testimony from his own lips, that like Manasseh of old, he had "set a carved image of the idol which he had made in the house of God, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen: "'*. -exalted an uncrucified self into the place of a crucified Saviour! I am fully aware, that no human hands can ever remove that dark thick veil, which Satan has embroidered with 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7, 9. optical deceptions, and cast over the minds of some of my brethren and sisters in Christ; but, my heart's desire and prayer is, for their deliverance: and I implore them, as they value their own immortal interests, to imitate the noble-minded Bereans, and to try the pretensions of Irvingism, by the touchstone of Scripture. "To the law, and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." * That is a very striking passage in the Revelations, wherein the beloved apostle calls the attention of the church to the mind of God as revealed concerning it; "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches!" + May the great Physician of souls, whose office it is to unstop the deaf ear, and to open the eyes of the blind, give true spiritual apprehensions to the misguided, that they may understand, and be admonished by the words of another prophet, whose visions were no less comprehensive than those of John; embracing the whole history of Zion to the final establishment of" Jehovah Shammah," the heavenly Jerusalem. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the LORD GOD. And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the LORD GOD. Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar : Say unto them which daub with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the + Rev. iii. 22. Isai. viii. 20. |