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CHAPTER 3.A - CLOSING SKETCH OF THE HISTORY.

This peculiarity belongs to those who here occupy our attention, that the failure of their expectations, which to others may be but a trial end bring correction of haste, is to the Irvingites fatal. The reason is as evident as it is unanswerable. Their edifice rests, first, on the genuine character of their prophets, who committed themselves, with all the leaders as well as the led, to their utterances as of God; secondly, and even more distinctly, on the twelve-fold unity of their apostolate, as raised up to prepare the bride for the returning of the Bridegroom. For they have ever avowed, before and since as well as in their Great Testimony, that "apostles, and apostles alone, are in Scripture declared to be the centre of authority, of doctrine, of unity in all things, to the visible church of Christ on earth, until His second and glorious appearing 'to those that look for Him without sin unto salvation.'" Hence, in flagrant contradiction of scripture, they claim for the apostles what they never claimed for themselves at the beginning who were the foundation on which the church was built. Never did they restrict to themselves the call to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them; never did they assume that the Lord gave this mission, not only to them alone directly and immediately, but to none other except through them. Consequently never in the N.T. do we hear in a single instance of ordaining the evangelist to that work, or of preachers receiving their mission from apostles. Very different in position, they are alike the gifts direct of the ascended Read. Irvingism is here a false witness.

They admit nominally the ruin of the church. "As truly as the angels left their first estate, as certainly as the nations before the flood apostatised and quenched the light given unto them from God through Adam, as surely as the Jews who crucified the Lord rejected the counsel of God against themselves, so truly the baptized have fallen from the glorious standing wherein God placed the church at the beginning." Yet instead of repenting in sackcloth and ashes, and enquiring of God what His word directs as befitting those who desire to do His will, they arrogate to themselves to restore all as at the beginning — an expectation contrary to every analogy in the past, and without any word to warrant it in the N.T. scriptures, not to say wholly opposed to all just inference, and inconsistent with the provision of grace for failure.

The Reformation never so presumed. Indeed the men whom God then used and blessed know little of God's church, being pre-occupied in getting rid of the Papal imposture and its more glaring departures from the truth. An open Bible they did recover and vindicate, though not without an undue reliance on the civil power, which thenceforward crippled the Protestant bodies. Non-conformity again sought and sometimes fought for relief of conscience and a liberty which did not fail to degenerate into self-will; it never rose to the assertion of Christ's rights acting by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; as the church became less and less known in these conflicts. There was no due sense of ruin. They endeavoured to do the best they could in their various societies. Their ministers were Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, as the case might be. They pretended not to the apostolate.

Irvingism confessed in word the church's ruin as they did not; and yet pretended to divinely given apostles with so much the graver guilt. For it there was one feature more essentially distinctive of the primitive church, it was those who constitute the foundation. Yet they knowing this, confessing present rain, and avowing faith in a constantly to be expected Lord, claim a full apostolate once more, as if a foundation could be the pinnacle as well as the basis of that building, the church. If this claim be a monstrous error, morally as well as doctrinally, even an Irvingite must own that no claim of theirs is so distinctive. But the apostle Paul, predicting the ruin at hand, never casts the faithful on apostolic succession, still less on restoring the ministry of apostles to the church. This is not the least lie of the enemy that distinguishes the body, which therefore calls itself Catholic Apostolic. Their own effort to set up the church again is a new and more monstrous form of evil than that of any serious christians, and all the more blind and obnoxious to judgment because they professed to see the ruin which Romanists denied, and Protestants saw not. It may be true that the cessation of the apostleship, and the ruin of the church, too sadly coincided; but, without warrant of scripture, for those involved in the ruin to look for apostles and accept twelve men in that capacity, as a remedy for evil and restoration of broken unity, is to fall into presumptuous sin, instead of humbling ourselves for our sins and those of the church at large.

But, even on their own showing, their anticipations have been proved false. Take the Narrative, by the N. German apostle's "permission," where three anointings of the apostles were to answer to David's. Whatever may be pretended as to the first and second, the third has confessedly failed altogether; when it was fondly hoped that the apostles would "receive a power and extent of jurisdiction which they did not then possess." Can the most sanguine say that this day has ever come? Why then do they not take and humble themselves in the dust?

Further, on the face of the facts, the apostolate for the end, which was to usher in the Lord's Appearing, has waxed old and is ready to vanish away. Does this consist with the voices of the accredited prophets and the universal faith of Irvingites? Candour will not dispute the clear inconsistency. For these twelve to die is fatal to all their testimony. Yet they are all deceased save one, Mr. R. Woodhouse, now an aged man, still lives at Albury, and appears occasionally at Gordon Square. Mr. Mackenzie, the last, who withdrew in 1840, was the first of the apostles to die; Mr. Carlyle followed; and Mr. W. Dow, all in 1855. Messrs. Perceval and Drummond died in 1859. Great things were looked for in 1856, and yet more in 1866, when apparently the prophets of error sought to cover over these unexpected deaths by the deceit of carrying on the sealing in the unseen world, which had so conspicuously failed in this world. This fable seems to be accepted, not only by Dr. Norton (pp. 183, 4), but on the testimony of one of these apostles who died expressing his full assurance that God had further work for him to do! in flat contradiction of the apostle's word in Phil. 1: 22-25. Besides, as sealing was avowedly to exempt from the great tribulation on this habitable earth, how could it apply to persons defunct? The alleged object is gone. Up to this time Mr. Dalton, one of the Twelve, still stuck to his position as an Anglican presbyter, and in fact not till 1860 gave himself up to apostolic work. Mr. Tudor died in 1862, Mr. Sitwell in 1865, and Mr. King-Church after him. Mr. Dalton died in 1871, Mr. Armstrong, then paralysed, lived some time longer. Mr. Cardale, who had ever been the energetic leader of the Twelve, remained till 1878. The idea of coadjutor apostles, overruled when Mr. Taplin first presented it, seems to have since prevailed: whether it is still in contemplation to add largely in this form, which is not unlike succession, is not certain. But Mr. Miller informs us that the prophetic utterances latterly, instead of addressing the Twelve as of old, have been saying, "O ye Twelve, and O ye seventy." But whatever this may indicate of the dissolving system, it is very certain that the Seventy of Luke 10 were in no way coadjutor apostles. The idea is a fiction, as opposed to their universal expectations founded on utterances in power, as it is fundamentally subversive of their ecclesiastical principle and scheme.

CHAPTER 3.B CONCLUSION OF HISTORY.

In this closing sketch it is proposed to test briefly the value of their anticipations grounded on their interpretation of Rev. 7, 14, which plays so prominent a part in their thoughts, words, and acts. In 1847, as may be remembered by our readers, their apostles began the imposition of hands on all members above twenty years of age, in accordance, as they pleaded, with Ex. 30! As Dr. Norton explains, "not that any are kept back from the table of the Lord till then; for even young children are admitted to it on all great festivals; and all their youth become regular monthly, and then weekly, communicants, after they duly received the instruction of the pastor, and the blessing of the angels, which is their episcopal confirmation; the laying on of apostolic hands being the further and higher consecration of them, as His sealed ones and first fruits, if they fall not sin and unbelief from this their high estate" (Restoration, p. 175).

Their words seem disingenuous as to sealing before and outside Irvingism. They naturally shrink from the logical result of their position. "We do not pause now to consider when, and in what way, those receive 'the seal of the living God,' who have lived and died in the absence of apostles, but who nevertheless for their pre-eminent faithfulness have obtained a place among the firstfruits; nor what will be the final accomplishment of the apocalyptic vision of the sealed after the appearing of the Lord; but regarding the prophecy in its historical aspect, we would remark that ten of the twelve tribes of the spiritual Israel have been sealed already; and that 'Joseph is now being sealed,' who obtains the birthright and blessing which Reuben, signifying the first century of christianity, failed to secure. And none can tell how quickly that phase of the church may terminate; and none others be sealed except as Benjamin the son of sorrow, born as his mother dies" (Restoration, pp. 175, 176).

It would have been wiser, every thoughtful soul must feel, if the Irvingites had "paused to consider" what they slur over. For it is impossible to allow that "pre-eminent faithfulness" can either gain the seal of the Spirit or dispense with that characteristic privilege. It would follow then that no saints for more than seventeen centuries since the death of John the apostle possessed that distinctive mark of christianity. Shrinking from an inference involving a judgment so extreme, they hint at a loophole of escape so untenable as "pre-eminent faithfulness" drawing a blessing, which they dogmatically restrict to the imposition of apostolic hands. As far as appears, they do not hope so charitably of the present generation. The sealed now at least are those only who come under the Irvingite apostles (not all these indeed, but such as were bold enough to act on the command of the second apostle speaking in the power).

The truth is that it is all ignorance of Scripture and unbelief of His grace. For it is clear from Holy Writ that on the great occasions recorded not a word is said of the apostles laying on their hands in order to the gift or sealing of the Spirit. The first was the day of Pentecost, when He was given to those of Israel who repented and were baptised. The second, yet more striking and to us of the deepest interest, was when the Gentiles also received the like gift in the house of Cornelius. It is certain that the Holy Ghost then sealed the Gentile faithful without the laying on of apostolic hands, though the first of the twelve was there to do that work, had it been requisite. The Scripture is conclusive. "While Peter yet spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word," They were not even baptised with water, till after they were thus baptised with the Holy Spirit; and they were baptised not by the apostle but by one or more of the "six brethren" that accompanied him. The basis of Irvingism is therefore destroyed by Scripture, which proves that, on the main occasions of that immense gift — the sealing of the Spirit, imposition of hands is not named in the first and in the other could not have been as the preliminary condition. It is therefore a groundless fiction. We are shown in the inspired history that the Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles (and such we are naturally) on the hearing of the word by faith; just as another apostle teaches it as indisputable truth (Gal. 3: 2). That in the subordinate of Samaria, (Acts 8) and Ephesus (Acts 19), the Spirit was given after apostles laid hands on the faithful, is true; but this cannot annul the typical ways of God with the Jews and the Gentiles who believed the gospel. They were but ancillary cases, it would seem, to counteract Samaritan independence, and to maintain the apostolate of Paul. The general principle abides untouched, thanks be to God Who provided thus indefeasibly for times and places where and when apostles could not be. The Irvingites, not seeing this great truth, have misused the peculiar cases to undermine the standing general truth, denied the special essential blessing of the church, and set up a false pretension.

Nor is this their only nor perhaps most flagrant error in the matter of sealing. It is perfectly clear that Rev. 7 speaks of a future definite act of God. You cannot legitimately embrace within the 144,000 any beyond a contemporaneous body thus favoured on the earth. Now let it be put to their conscience: is it true that "ten of the twelve tribes of the (spiritual) Israel have been sealed already"? As far as can be ascertained, it is doubtful if all the sealed by the modern apostles amount to 12,000, without speaking of the many of their sealed ones who have since renounced it all as delusion! What is meant by "Joseph is now being sealed," it is hard to understand; any more than the dreamy application of Reuben and Benjamin. It is a matter of their phraseology that Manasseh means Italy, which fell to Mr. Perceval's lot, Ephraim means Poland and India which fell to Mr. Tudor. If these constitute Joseph, he is far from being now sealed. Whether the reference to Reuben and Benjamin can refer to Mr. Woodhouse's claim over Austria, S. Germany, and America, and to Mr. Drummond's over Scotland and Switzerland, may be questioned. It looks as if Dr. Norton had forgotten their prophetic apportionment, and was employing the terms in another figurative way familiar only to initiated ears.

When the day comes for the fulfilment of Rev. 7, — there will be no failure: twelve thousand (literally or symbolically) will be sealed out of each and all the twelve tribes. But the divine object is wholly misconceived by their teaching. The 144,000 are not to be "taken away," first or last. In the vision the angel from the sun-rising with a seal of the living God seals those servants of God on their foreheads, in contrast with the action of the four angels whose task it is to hurt the earth and the sea and the trees. Not translation to heaven, but exemption from the proposed judicial scourge is intimated: security from the woes to come. See Rev. 9: 4, and compare Ezek. 9.

It is allowed that "those who come out, of the great tribulation form again a distinct body of witnesses" (Restoration, p. 185). And this witness is true. It is in no way a general description of the blessed of all times, but a peculiar and countless crowd out of all the nations at the of the age. This therefore renders it plain that the sealed out of the twelve tribes are Israelites in that day, and distinguished from Gentiles. If "spiritual Israel," the distinction is gone: they are the same in principle. But not so: the more carefully Rev. 7 is studied as a whole, the more evident it is that the sealed of Israel's sons stand over against the innumerable throng that is gathered out of every nation. The later words of (Catholic Apostolic) prophecy, as Dr. N. shows, admit the difference. But if so, it is a state of things quite incompatible with the church, that one body wherein is neither Jew nor Gentile, both being merged with every other fleshly distinction in our union with Christ on high.

Hence, with a better understanding of the Revelation, they would have known that there is no such thing named as "churches" on earth after Rev. 3, and that from Rev. 4 a new symbol is seen in heaven (the twenty-four crowned and enthroned elders, etc.), which points to the promised assemblage above, not of first-fruits only, but of those who are Christ's at His coming, His joint-heirs, before He as the slain Lamb opens the seals that indicate the process of judgment, by which He will be invested with His inheritance. When the church is gone, the faithful on earth are seen as either Israelitish or Gentile; and so we find henceforth in the Revelation.

Again, Rev. 14 is no repetition of the sealed out of the twelve tribes. It is another and yet more favoured company, of Jews proper and of course converted, in special association with the Lamb on Mount Zion. They are like David's personal followers of Judah, faithful when the mass of Jews will return to idolatry and fall under anti-christ, as our Lord warned in Matt. 12 and the prophets also declare. These are purchased from among men and out of the earth, firstfruits to God and the Lamb. They too are not caught up to heaven, but anticipate the blessed harvest of the millennial earth, a company yet more honoured than the sealed Israelites of Rev. 7. Neither company has to do with the church, any more than the Gentiles then saved. As to all this, the prospects of the Catholic Apostolic body are quite wrong, and have beguiled the body into fallacious hopes. They are based on indisputable misinterpretation and glaring perversion of God's word.