CHAPTER XIV.

THE IRVINGITES, OR APOSTOLICAL CHURCH.

If the absence of brotherly love for religious people, if a scorn of all who worship God different from themselves, constitute heresy--and surely the Apostle John shows that it does very clearly--then there are no such heretics in London as the Irvingites, who worship in a very magnificent cathedral in Gordon Square. Irving, I imagine, with all his genius, had a very uncatholic spirit. Take, for instance, his celebrated missionary sermon. Requested by the directors of the London Missionary Society to preach the annual sermon at Surrey Chapel--how did he begin?

When he ascended the pulpit he entered on a kind of audible soliloquy. Said he, "How shall I encourage myself to address the thronging multitude by whom I am surrounded? I will even cast about for a few examples. There are three of a notable character which now strike me: that of the Apostle Paul preaching before the Jewish Sanhedrim, that of Bernard Gilpin preaching before the Court of King Edward VI., and, that of a Scottish Divine preaching before the Commissioner of the General Assembly. On these three examples, as on a sacred tripod, I feel my spirit propped; but especially the last, the Scottish Divine preaching before the Commissioner of the General Assembly. If he could venture to encounter the hoary-headed eldership and substantial theology of the North, surely I may, without fear, address myself to the flimsy evangelism of the South." In this kind and flattering way did Irving speak of the great body of English Dissenters.

Of the Irvingite Church, the late Drummond, the banker, M.P. for Surrey, was also an elder, and the same spirit lent bitterness to his sarcastic and biting tongue. It was a treat to see and hear him, especially when the topic was at all theological. Irving describes Drummond as one "who hath taken us poor despised interpreters of prophecy under your wing, and made the walls of your house like unto the ancient schools of the prophets." But out of his own house Drummond seemed to have taken little else or nothing under his wing. His mission apparently was to preach that in nothing was there anything--that we were all whited sepulchres. The Egyptians placed a skeleton at their feasts to remind them of their mortality. The Sultan Saladin, it is said, had a similar message dinned daily into his ears by a herald especially appointed to that purpose. Mr. Drummond voluntarily took that duty on himself. In his eye we were all morally dead; all virtue was gone clean out of us; the Church was in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death. Nor had Dissent one ray more of Gospel light. Under the mask of patriotism he saw the grovelling soul of the placeman; in the love of liberty the desire of licence; in the rulers of the land a lamentable lack of understanding; in the people a blind, senseless, untaught mass. Drummond was such a one as Tennyson describes:--

"Thou shalt not be saved by works; Thou hast been a sinner too. Ruined trunks on wither'd forks, Empty scarecrows I and you."

Thus did he perorate with the thinnest of voices, and gentlest manner, to a House of which, for many sessions, he was the delight and puzzle, all the while he was a member of the Irvingite Church.

A great claim is set up by this Church. Like Aaron's rod, it is to swallow up all the rest. So great is its hatred of sects, it forms a new one. While calling itself the holy and Apostolic Church, it makes no exclusive claim to the title. It acknowledges it to be the common title of the one Church baptized unto Christ. It claims to be no body of separatists from the Church of England. The members recognise the continuance of that Church from the days of the Apostles, and of the three orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, by succession from the Apostles. They have no sympathy with Dissent in any of its forms. That is schism, and is to be condemned accordingly. They meet in separate congregations, but they are not open to the charge of schism, on the ground of their meeting being permitted and authorized, so they say, by an ordinance of paramount authority which they believe God has restored for the benefit of the Church. At once their ecclesiasticism strikes the most superficial observer; the idea of the Church, that it is a mere assembly of believers, is rejected by them on every occasion and in every way. Their great glory is that the Apostolical order exists and is manifested in them.

Their special teaching is something more. It is often asked, Are the days of Pentecost gone never to return? Have miracles ceased from among men? Cannot signs and wonders be still wrought by the Holy Ghost? As a rule, the Church answers this question in the negative. It teaches that the age of miracles is past; that they are no longer necessary; that in the fulness of time the Divine will was made known to man; and that the Church needs not now the signs and wonders by which that revelation was attested and declared. A large, or rather an active body, some few years ago sprang up in Scotland, crossed the Border, and extended to England, and enrolled amongst their members many in what may be termed an influential position in life. Enter their churches, and you learn, according to them, the gift of tongues still exists, signs and wonders are still manifested to the faithful, miracles are still wrought by those upon whom God has conferred the gift. Still, as much as in Apostolic times, does the Divine afflatus dwell in man, and the man so endowed becomes a prophet, and declares the will of God. "The doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth was at first," says Gibbon, "treated as profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length regarded as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism." A similar process has been in operation with regard to the power of working miracles and speaking in unknown tongues. Against this process the Irvingite or Catholic Church is a living protest.

It is now many years since a magnificent Gothic cathedral was commenced in the corner of Gordon Square, between what at one time was Coward College and the handsome building erected by the Unitarians, and known as University Hall. Architecturally the new church may take high rank. The cathedral, still unfinished, is perhaps the most extensive modern work of the kind that has been undertaken. The Early English style has been adopted generally for the exterior, but inside the style of the roof and stone carvings is Decorated. The flat ceiling of the aisles, with rich traceried bosses and spandrels, is very effective. The ornament throughout, of which there is a considerable quantity, displays careful design. Indeed, in the opinion of competent critics the execution could not be surpassed. There are daily services in the church; on Sunday there are four. In the evening there is a sermon addressed to strangers. It may be added here that, under the title of Catholic Apostolic churches, there are in all seven buildings registered in London. To each, I believe, appertain an evangelist, an apostle, a prophet, and an angel; and as each officer is peculiarly distinguished by his dress, in the cathedral in Gordon Square an effect is sometimes produced almost as scenic as any in a Roman Catholic cathedral. There are chairs for some, and benches for others; as much as possible they come and go in procession. All that is wanted to make you believe that you are in a Roman Catholic place of worship is a little incense, a few more banners, a little more life in the pulpit, and, above all, the presence of considerable numbers of the poorest of the poor. Here, indeed, the resemblance fails; there are no poor, comparatively speaking. Everyone is distressingly genteel; and I could swear more than once when I have been present, the preacher, so fashionable has been his lisp, has been, if not Lord Dundreary himself, at any rate his own "brother Thwam." The hearers must be wealthy and liberal--the service of the church, and the church, all indicate this.

I do not here enter into the question how far Church authority extends, whether apostolical gifts are to be looked for in our day rather than the apostolic spirit. I am not even definitely able to sum up the teaching of the lights of Gordon Square. They avoid putting their doctrines in print--and seem to seek to make converts by sly insinuation rather than by open statement. All I can say is--and any outsider can see it--that with apostolic pretensions these men avoid every appearance of apostolical simplicity. They must meet not in an upper room, but in a gorgeous cathedral, where they must clothe themselves in every variety of ecclesiastical millinery, and appeal to the senses, to the eye and to the ear, rather than to the brain or heart. Thus is it, when genius fails, men have recourse to art. Irving would preach for hours to enraptured audiences. The church has no Irving now, but rejoices instead in mosaic pavement, fine music, man millinery, and elaborate ceremonial.