Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/68

332 in unknown tongues, took the place of prayer and exhortation. As in the cases of Row and Port-Glasgow, also, these visitations were chiefly confined to the female sex, and a few unlucky men, the victims of feminine susceptibility. But the London form of the disease soon took a higher flight than that of Scotland. Private rooms and session- houses were found insufficient for such important manifestations, and they were daringly transferred to the church, and incorporated with the solemn public services. And how could the spirit of Mr. Irving brook such arrogant interruptions? But, alas ! the lion within him was tamed, cowed, and chained; and he who daringly sought to be more, was now less than man. He believed that the second Pentecostal day had come, of which the first was but a type; that these were the divine supernatural manifestations by which the second coming and reign of Christ upon earth were to be heralded; and that himself, the while, was the honoured John the Baptist, by whom the coming had been heralded and the way prepared.

These were proceedings which the church could no longer tolerate, and the case was taken up by the London presbytery in the early part of 1830. As vet, the charge brought against him was only that of heresy, one, as we have already mentioned, so difficult to substantiate; and, therefore, the discussion was prolonged for eighteen months without any final result. But during the interval the excesses at the Caledonian Church, Regent Square, had become so wild, and withal so notorious, that the question of his offence was no longer one of nice metaphysical subtlety. These were matters of fact, not of mere opinion, and soon received from the depositions of examined witnesses their full amount of proof. It is to be observed that, for some time, Mr. Irving had been in the practice of exalting the authority of the church as paramount and supreme, while, by the church, he meant the ministers and office-bearers exclusively, in their courts assembled for the purposes of ecclesiastical legislation. Their dictates were infallible, and therefore to be received without disputation or scruple. It was the system of his favourite Hooker pushed into the extremes of Puseyism, and even of downright Popery. According, therefore, to his own teaching, he should have accepted the presbytery's award with implicit submission. But it happened with him, in his own case, as it has done with many others, that this particular instance was an exception to the general rule. His light and knowledge, his vocation and labours, were superior to those of his brethren; they were working and blundering in darkness, upon subjects which they were not worthy to comprehend; and how, then, could they be qualified to judge in such a case as this? This, his conclusion, was apparent in his conduct during the course of trial. He lost patience during the cross-examination of the witnessess, and charged the presbytery with being a "Court of Antichrist." His defence, which occupied four hours in the delivery, was more the language of denunciation and rebuke, than confession or exculpation; it was even a fierce defiance and full rejection of Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies to boot, when they came in contravention with himself and his kirk session. The result of this trial was, that he was found guilty of the charges libelled against him, and sentenced to deposition from his local cure as minister of the Scotch National Church in Regent Square. Regarding, or pretending to regard this sentence as a mere nullity, he at- tempted to hold his early morning meetings in that building as before; but when he presented himself, with his followers, for that purpose, he found the gates locked, and all access refused. True to his new character, he uttered an