PENTECOSTALISM:
SCOTTISH A. J. SCOTT
INTIMATIONS OF MODERN
AND THE 1830 CLYDESIDE CHARISMATICS
by
J.
Philip
Newell
a young devout Scotts woman
prayer
in her own
home,
On 28 March 1830,
Mary Campbell,
from
Clydeside, during
an act of communal
spoke
in ‘an unknown
tongue.’l Mary
and those with her believed this
to be a
resurgence
of the
apostolic
modern
pentecostalism matic
phenomena
gift
of
tongues.
What were the
of Scotland? What further charis-
a theology of the
Spirit,
had
encouraged
the
early
Church’s
spiritual react to these
extraordinary
circumstances that led
up
to this
remarkably early anticipation
in presbyterian
occurred on
Clydeside
at this
time,
and how far did they spread?
Who was it that,
having developed
Mary Campbell
and others to seek the restoration of
gifts?
And how did the British Churches
occurences?
Alexander John Scott
(1805-66),
as a young minister in the National
began
to
develop
in his
theology,
as
early
as
1827,
Kirk of Scotland,
lE.
Irving, ‘Facts Connected with Recent Manifestations of Spiritual Gifts,’ Fraser’s Magazine vol. 4 (London, … 1832), p. 760.
J. Philip Newell (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh, Scotland), is Ecumenical Chaplain at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
1
an unusual
emphasis
on the
Spirit)
This was due in
part
to the in-
to the
orthodoxy
of the
fluence of his father, who, in marked contrast
upon
the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit.
said old Dr. Scott, ‘to think how little the offices of the
Holy Spirit
are known, or considered,
day, placed great importance ‘It is
melancholy,’
reading,
or
hearing,
or
catechising,
while this is the case?’2 ‘What is this wilful
ignorance
of the
Spirit-what
is this
contempt of the
unchangeable
family
and his
congregation
During
an
assistantship,
young
Scott’s
or
improved.
How can or
praying even,
be
profitable,
of the office of his
assistance,
but a
contempt
his
it.
to under-
plan
of heaven.’ Scott’s father
encouraged
in Greenock to
‘go
to school to the
Holy Spirit.’3
Scott
picked up
his father’s
emphasis
and further
developed
between 1828 and
1830,
to Edward
Irving at the Scots Kirk in Regent
Square, London,
Scott
attempted
stand the true nature of the Church
by going
back to its
origins
in the first
century.
He was
impressed by the early
Church’s
living quality, one element of that life
being
its charismatic
theology
had been characterised
which was vital and
living
and
by
a stress on the
importance
faith. In his first
theological
state of the Church of his
age
and had
longed for a Church of
living
men and women with the
Spirit
of God
dwelling in and
speaking by them.5
Scott now found in the
early
Church’s charis-
perienced
the
lifeless, ‘palsied’
matic
gifts
a
sign
of the
spiritual
gifts.4 Up
to this
stage
by
a search for that
of ex- publication
he had mourned
dynamism
for which he
longed.
the
Spirit,
for certain
pockets
Scott was not alone in
emphasising
within the British Churches at this time were
praying
for ‘an
outpouring of the
Holy Spirit.’6
But
they
were not
looking
for
anything
charismatic
Unpublished
lfor a complete biographical and theological study of A. J. Scott see J. P. Newell’s
Ph.D. Thesis, A. J. Scott and His Circle, University of Edinburgh, 1981.
2J. Scott, Sermons (Edinburgh, 1839), p. 31.
3Ibid, p. 447.
4See J. Thompson, The Owens College (Manchester, 1886), p. 176.
5 See A. J. Scott, ‘Answer to the Question, What was the Reformation?’ Parts 1 & 2, The Morning Watch vols. 1, 2 (London, 1829 and 1831).
1946), pp.
6P. E. Shaw, The Catholic Apostolic Church, Sometimes Called Irvingite (New York,
25-27.
– 2-
2
on
as was Scott. And
although Irving,
as
early
as
1827,
had
preached the
gifts
of the
Spirit, he,
at that
stage,
did not
actually
believe that
the
apostolic gifts
would be restored second advent.1
spiritual gifts:
Irving
described Scott’s
to the Church until after Christ’s
unique emphasis
on the
He was at that time
my
fellow-labourer in the National Scotch
Church, being
our
missionary
exercised
to
preach
to the
poor
of the
city;
he used often to
signify
into the assurance of
and re-
to
propose
gressions
heritance until our Redeemer
and as we went in and out
together,
to me his conviction that the
spiritual gifts ought
still to be
in the
Church;
that we are at
liberty,
and indeed bound to
pray
for them as
being baptised
the
‘gift
of the
Holy Ghost,’
as well as of
‘repentance mission of sins’
(Acts 2:38).
When I
used,
on these occasions
to him
my difficulty,
we should have been
ajudged
lest for our father’s trans-
to the loss of our in- should come, he never failed to
into one
body,
the
make
answer,
that
though
we were
baptised
Church,
we were called to act
upon
our several
responsibilities
as
persons;
that the
promise
the
body
and
membership
is to
every
believer
personally
I continued
who, receiving
of the
same,
do
by
their several
gifts
constitute
of the Church.
Though
I could make no answer to this, and it is
altogether
still
very
little moved to seek
myself
or to stir
up my people
to
seek these
spiritual
treasures.2
Scott’s influence
scribing
his
young colleague Eventually,
unanswerable,
of the rarest
insight.3
con-
upon Irving, however,
was
immense,
the latter de-
as a
theologian
3
under the
powerful
influence of Scott’s
theological viction, Irving,
as he described it himself, ‘went forward to contend and to instruct whenever the subject came before me, in my
public
minis- strations of reading and
preaching
the
Word, that
the
Holy
Ghost
ought
amongst
us
all,
the same as ever he was in any one of the
primitive
churches.’4 The Scots Kirk in
Regent Square, therefore,
to be manifested
had become a centre of charismatic
lIrving op. ciG, pp. 754-5.
2Ibid, p. 756.
emphasis.
3See M. Oliphant, The Life of Edward Irving, vol. 2 (London, 1862), p. 68.
4lrving, op. cuit, p. 756.
– 3-
3
Scott,
in 1829,
began writing
a work on the
spiritual gifts,
entitled Neglected
Truths or ‘Hints on I Corinthians 14.’ He continued and
his conviction that the Church is called to be the
living body
of Christ in the
world, infused by the
life-giving
expanded,
in this
publication,
Spirit
of God. Scott
explained
that John the
Baptist’s
most con-
reason for de-
of the
Spirit
as
though men
calling
themselves
spicuous
title for the
coming
Christ was
‘Baptiser
with the
Holy Ghost,’ and that Christ himself
gave,
as his most
important
parting,
the
promise
of the
Spirit.
We
live, said Scott, in the
dispen- sation of the
Spirit.1
But the Church has ‘so
spoken
of the
presence
it were an obscure and uncertain
thing,
that
spiritual,
awed, never strengthened,
Church,
as at
present existing, Shechinah,
to demonstrate
are habituated to the
searing
without The
Church,
if it is to be a
God and
familiarity
of thinking, that the
Holy
Ghost
may
be in them, but never
never raised above the
world, by knowing that the
Holy
Ghost is in them as a truth…. We cannot but
regard
the
as
being,
at
best,
a
temple
without Urim and
Thummin,’2
continuation of the
original body,
claimed
Scott, requires the energising thrust of the
Holy Spirit,
as was the case in the
early
Church. The true Church is a body of men and women indwelt
by God,
without limi- tation of His
being yet
without confusion of nature between
man,
and it derives its life and
unity
from this inhabitation alone.3 The purpose
of the charismatic
gifts
is to demonstrate the Life of the
body,
the
loving
God who has enshrined himself in the fallen humanity
of the Church. ‘It does
appear,’
said
Scott,
‘that the
difficulty of
convincing
men how
awfully grand
and
important
which we
speak,
arises from the
difficulty
of
presenting
the idea of God
personally inhabiting man,’4
Paul addressed the church as the
temple
of the
living
God. In her were men to see God. Scott
in the Church which is neither the
presence
called for a
presence
man,
nor the common
Omnipresence
is the
subject
of
to their minds
of of
God,
but ‘his Personal Exhibi-
tion of Himself. A voice must be heard from her which is neither the voice of Levite or of Cherubim; but the voice of God: a glory seen in her which is God’s own
glory: –
God so present, not as in works in which he may
be
traced,
but as in his tabernacle
whose face men shall “fall down and
worship,” ‘5
where he dwelleth.
God, before
IA. J. Scott, Neglected Truths (London, 1830), p. 3.
2Ibid., p. 4. 3Ibid., p. 10. 4Ibid. 5Ibid., p. 18.
– 4-
4
In
dealing
more
specifically
with Paul’s instruction
14,
Scott took
up
the
apostle’s chapter:
In
encouraging
the charismata
‘Make love
your aim,
and
earnestly
‘Charity,’
in I Corinthians emphasis
in the first verse of that
desire the
spiritual gifts.’ as demonstrations of the Divine Life
shall serve their
temporary pur-
away.’l
.
within the
body
of the Church, Scott had in view the final
goal
of love.
he
said, ‘eternity
shall never leave out of date, while
prophe- cies,
while
tongues,
while
knowledge
poses,
and when that which is
perfect
is
come,
shall vanish … Scott went on to say that Love is itself the
crowning
of the
edifice,
‘for which the
scaffolding
is erected,
spiritual gifts,
the
particular
forms and
measures scaffolding;
of God’s manifestation, and therefore
themselves,
and edifieth
whereof
we
speak,
are but the
also,
not
as it is written, when
to be taken down. But therefore
to be taken down, ere the
building
be
completed;
that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part
shall be done away.
Is that which is perfect come? Is that which edifieth the brethren
the
Church,
and teacheth the world to know that God is in her of a truth, less needed now than in the
days
of Paul?12 Scott’s
hope
was for a Church
inspired by
the
Spirit
of God, a
body which in its charismatic life would reveal its Divine Source of Life who is
Love.
north to Scotland
time he did some
preaching
of this work Scott was called death in November 1829. He
concentrating
for the most
Around the time of the
completion
upon
his mother’s
stayed
for a little while at his father’s manse in Greenock,
during
which
in
Clydeside,
part
on the
spiritual gifts
of the
early
Church. Scott’s
mind, wrote Irving, ‘God was more and more
confirming
on this
head,
and
enabling
to dis- entangle
the
subject
of the
baptism
with the
Holy
Ghost from the work
with which it is
commonly
of
regeneration,
latter cometh from the incarnation,
confounded,
whereof the and the former from the
glorifi-
Irving,
‘was led to
open
his
cation of the Son of God.’ Scott, continued
mind to some of the
godly people
in those
parts.’3
The
atmosphere
in the west of Scotland
was,
in certain
respects, favourable to Scott’s conviction that the charismata
ment Christian community should characterise
Scott and some of his friends, Thomas Erskine, had
distinguished
llbid., p. 12.
2Ibid., p. 13.
3Irving, Op. cit, p. 756.
of the New Testa-
every age
of the Church. such as John McLeod
Campbell
and
themselves
by teaching,
in con-
5
5
travention to the Kirk’s Westminster
Confession,
that God’s love was taught,
restricted to
doctrine,
ex-
traordinary explained:
for all men and women and not, as the Confession
the elect.
Among
some of the adherents of this ‘heretical’
events had
begun
to
occur, as Scott’s future father-in-law
pany’s
flaxdressers thought, by intemperance. Johnston,
‘
truth in fulness of joy…. in
prayer….
He
petitioned
Com-
brought on,
it was his
young master,
W.
A
good many
weeks
ago,
one of the Gourock
Ropework
took ill of a disease
Of
course,
was not
long
of being at his bed
side, and was blessed in
being
the instrument of his conversion to Christ. It was soon very
manifest that the Lord was
taking
a peculiar interest in this man,
so to
speak,
and
gave
him
grace
most
rapidly
to receive the
He lies on his
back, his eyes often shut
that the Lord would now send in some one in need of instruction. ‘Whilst he was yet speaking,’ two persons
lifted the latch of the door and came
in, and forthwith
he , spoke
to them from the Lord, so that
they
started as if he knew their hearts – thus it is almost
always
with him.1
Such
extraordinary
reports
had been communicated to Scott in London, but now he was able to confirm them, and ‘was
stronger
than
ever,’ wrote Irving,
‘in his conviction that the
gifts
of the
Holy
Ghost would be
restored,
and that
speedily.’2
There was
developing, certain residents of
Clydeside, especially
sympathetic,
a sense of
expectancy
among
therefore,
but
they
were a religious
minority, and,
in a town like Port
Glasgow
where the minister was not
they
established house
meetings
for
Scripture reading
and prayer.
Here
they prayed
for an
outpouring
that, as Boase explained, ‘they sought, simply,
that multitudes of souls might
be
gathered in, and the Lord of the harvest
himself come.’3 It was
among
these
people,
associated beds,
that
extraordinary
of the
Spirit, although by
especially
with a few on their death-
persons
events had
begun
to occur.
‘They
were able to know the condition of God’s
people
at a distance, and to pray for the very things
which
they needed; they
were able to search the hearts of
they
were above measure
in their
presence;
strengthened
to
1 C. W. Boase, Supplementary Narrative to the Elijah Ministry (Printed for private circulation, c. 1870), pp. 754-55.
21rving, op. cuit, p. 757.
3Boase, op. cuit, p. 772.
-6-
6
hold out both in
prayer
and exhortation.’1 But as
yet
the
subject spiritual gifts
had received no attention
Scott,
said
Irving,
to sow the seed which was to bear
the ‘precious
unfavourably
or as
Irving’s biographer splendid
mischief.’3
of among
them. It was reserved to
fruit,’2 described
it,
to
lay
‘this train of
One of the
people
to whom Scott
opened
his mind on the
subject
of
the charisrnata was Mary
Campbell Isabella,
unusual
depth
of
prayer
Fernicarry
of
Fernicarry,
sister of the late had been characterised
by
an mystic
communion with God.
where
people
whose later life of
suffering
and almost
had become almost a shrine of
pilgrimage
came to hear of
Mary’s
sister. Before
long, however,
much of the interest in Isabella was transferred to Mary herself, ‘a
young
and beauti-
ful
woman,
of fervid
temperament whose
interesting
generation
study
the Acts of the
Apostles
she,
were soon to be exercised
and fluent
speech,
herself an invalid,
as she
her to in mind. Within
gifts
languor passed
into animation and
eloquence, talked of the sister she had lost and the Lord she loved.’4 Scott visited Mary
late in 1829 and
spoke
to her of ‘the distinction between re-
and
baptism
with the
Holy Ghost,’5
and
encouraged
with this distinction
a month of Scott’s visit, Mary came to believe in the charismatic of the
Spirit.6 Immediately
with a
group
of friends,
began
to
pray for a
baptism
of the
Holy Spirit,
and believed that the charismata
again by
the Church.7
Fifteen miles
away
from
Fernicarry,
had convinced others as well. A
shipbuilding
by name,
were now also
seeking
the
spiritual dynamism of the
early
Church in the form of its charismatic
people, along
with some
others,’ wrote Principle
versity,
‘had been led to
pray
for and to
expect
the restoration of
Scott MacDonalds
1 Irving, op. cit, p. 757.
2Ibid., p. 756.
in the town of Port
Glasgow,
family,
the
life. ‘These
good Story
of Glasgow Uni-
30hphant,
The Life of Edward Irving, vol. 2, p. 107.
4R. H. Story, ‘Edward Irving,’ Scottish Divines (Edinburgh, 1883), p. 254.
5 Irving, op. cit, p. 756.
6Ibid., p. 757. See also the excellent study of Irving in relation to the charismatic outburst in G. Strachan, The Pentecostal Theology of Edward Irving (London,1973), p. 64.
?Strachan, op. cix, p. 16.
– 7-
,
7
“spiritual gifts”
to the
Church, charismata of the Corinthians, sown the charismatic
in late December 1829.
preached
seed around the
Clyde,
Scott returned
at
Fernicarry.
by
a sermon on the nature of the
by
Mr. A. J. Scott.’l
Having
to London
for the restoration of the
On 28 March 1830 Mary Campbell spoke in ‘an unknown tongue’
Her sister and a friend had
spent
the
day
at
Fernicarry, in
prayer
and
fasting, praying especially
gifts.
And as
Irving
described it:
spiritual
the midst of their devotion,
and
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
Holy
Ghost came with
mighty power upon
the sick woman as she
lay
in her
weakness,
her to
speak
at
great length,
and with
superhuman strength,
in an unknown
tongue,
to the astonishment of all who heard and to her own
great
edification and
enjoyment
constrained
Church’s
charismatic
ill God.2
Mary
and those with her believed this to be the restoration of the early
gift
of
tongues.
Within
days,
in
early April,
on the other side of the
Clyde
at Port Glasgow,
one of the MacDonald brothers was also ‘endowed with the power
of the
Holy
Ghost.’ His sister recounted the
sequence
of events:
had been so unusually ill
For several
days Margaret (MacDonald)
that I
quite thought
her
dying,
and on
appealing
to the doctor, he held out no
hope
of her
recovery
unless she were able to
go through
a course of powerful medicine, which he
acknowledged
to be in her case
impossible.
She had
scarcely
been able even
to have her bed made for a week. Mrs. – and
myself
had been
sitting quietly
at the
bedside,
when the
power
of the
Spirit
of
came
upon
her. She
said,
‘There will be a
mighty baptism the
Spirit
this
day;
and then broke forth in a most marvellous
setting
forth of the wonderful weakness had been
altogether Ghost, continued
with little or no intermission hours,
m
mingled praise, prayer
and exhortation.
works of
God,
and as if her own lost in the
strength
of the
Holy
for two or three
At dinner
1R. H. Story, Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Robert Story (London, 1862), p. 205.
2Irving, op. cit, pp. 759-60.
-8-
8
addressed
with a solemn
prayer
for
time James and
George
came home as
usual,
whom she then
at
great length, concluding
James that he might at that time be endowed with the
Holy
Ghost.
Almost
instantly
him and almost trembled, whole countenance. indescribable
majesty,
James
calmly said,
‘I have
got
it.’ He walked to the window and stood silent for a minute or two. I looked at
there was such a
change upon
his
He then with a step and manner of the most
walked
up
to
Margaret’s
addressed her in those words of the twentieth
and stand
upright.’
He
repeated
bedside and
psalm,
‘arise the
words,
took her
by
the
her in
our
surprise,
hand,
and she arose; then we all
quietly
sat down and took our dinner. After it my brother went to the
building yard
as
usual, where James wrote over to Miss
Campbell commanding the name of the Lord to arise. The next
morning
after breakfast James said, I am
going
down to the
quay
to see if Miss
Campbell is come across the water; at which we
expressed
as he had said
nothing
to us of
having
written to her. The re- sult showed how much he knew of what God had done and would do for her, for she came as he
expected, declaring
herself
per-
fectly
whole-1
Mary Campbell,
who
appears
to have been
suffering
from
tuberculosis, described her own
healing
as follows:
Sabbath, insensibility. weeks
previous
excepted).
On I did not feel
quite
so
and
palpi-
On the
Saturday previous
to
my
restoration to health, I was
very ill, suffering
from
pain
in
my
chest and breathlessness. On the
I was
very ill,
and
lay
for several hours in a state of
Next
day
I was worse than I had been for several
(the agony
of the
Saturday
Tuesday
I was no better. On
Wednesday
languid
but was
suffering
some
pain
from
breathing
tation of my heart. Two individuals who saw me about four hours before
my recovery
said that I could never be
strong;
that I was not to
expect
a miracle to be
wrought upon
me: it was not
long after until I received dear brother James MacDonald’s giving
an account of his sister’s
being
raised
up,
and command- ing
me to rise and walk. I had
scarcely
read the first
page
when
letter,
1R. Norton, Memoirs of James arcd George MacDonald of Port Glasgow (London 1840), pp. 107-9.
9
9
I became
quite overpowered,
instantaneously
and laid it aside for a few
minutes; but I had no rest in my mind until I took it up again, and
began
to read. As I read every word came home with
power,
and when I came to the command to arise, it came home with a power which no words can describe; it was felt to be indeed the voice of Christ; it was such a voice as could not be
resisted;
a mighty power was
exerted
upon
me: I felt as if I had been lifted from off the earth, and all
my
diseases taken from off me at the voice of Christ. I was
verily
made in a moment to stand
upon my feet, leap and walk, sing and rejoice.1
of how
Clearly, extraordinary things
were
taking place,
and
regardless
cures of some
description appear
to have
‘As to the miracle of healing in Mary
Campbell’s
the minister of Row
parish,
John McLeod
these events are
interpreted, occurred.
knew
Mary,
‘it is
unquestionable
case,’
wrote
Campbell,
who
personally that she was
suddenly
restored to
health from a state of severe sickness and a sickness
pronounced by
her medical attendant
incurable.’2
On 18
April
James MacDonald and his brother also
spoke
in un- known
tongues,
and the next
day
claimed to have been
given
the
gift
of
On 20
April
James recorded:
interpretation.
On
Friday evening
while we were all met for
prayer,
utterance was
given
to
George
in an unknown
tongue,
and next to me. It
is
manifestly
out of ourselves:
we have no more
power
over
I mean control as to
are
subject
it than a
trumpet
has over its sounds, –
forming
the words; for the
spirits
of the
prophets
in as far as
they
can refrain from
speaking.
Mr.
Campbell
came
over, and my mouth was again
‘pray
that
ye may interpret;’
in short
one
by
one. The first word
to the
prophets,
On
Saturday
opened.
He
said,
it is
written, he
accordingly prayed. sentences
of
interpretation
I was then made to
speak which
George interpreted
was ‘Behold he cometh – Jesus cometh.’3
llbid., pp. 109-10.
College
2J. M. Campbell, A letter to T. Chalmers, 28 April 1830. University of Edinburgh, New
MS. CHA.4.134.21.
3Norton, op. cuit, p. 111. –
– 10-
10
closely
followed
During
the month of
April 1830,
John McLeod
Campbell, today
greatest theologians,
and Port
Glasgow.
Late in
April
he wrote
of
19th-century
considered one of Scotland’s events,
both in
Fernicarry to the much renowned churchman Chalmers,
‘as to the facts’ of the recent charismatic
Scotland, Thomas
activity:
to
health,
twice or three
Mary Campbell,
before her restoration
times
(I
am not sure
which)
at intervals of some
days – spoke
to those around her ‘other
tongues.’
with what
appeared distinction of
tongues of these occasions
seemed
The quite
marked. She also on one
character – as is de-
wrote in an unknown
scribed with
great rapidity,
and the
variety
in the
tongues
which struck the ear has been confirmed so far
by
a
variety
in the
which she has written at different times. Two
speci- mens,
written since her
recovery,
characters
before, and they
seemed three specimen
appeared
one character
(for
the characters
but no distinct
intelligent
I
saw, and also that written distinct characters – a fourth
has
and one extended to a
or
copies
of
and to
persons
known to
with Eastern
languages s
elsewhere. We have as
yet
Mary
does not under-
of ideas with the several
of the
gift
as if
has been like one of the three. Each
specimen
throughout –
small octave
page
or
nearly
so. These
specimens
them have been sent to
Cambridge
some who have been here as
acquainted
seemed
eastern)
no
reply
to
any
of these communications.
stand the
languages
which she
speaks.
In
praying
in them she feels much nearness to God and sensible communion with him –
association
words. She described to me the first
reception
something
were
just poured
into her and made to
pass through her
lips
without volition. The
subsequent
says
has been in a way of conscious
dependence
in
uttering every
word
(just
as I understand her like
praying
in the
spirit
when it has been her native
language).
A strong sense of the
presence
of God and a realisation
these exercises.
always accompanied
Two other individuals, or
carpenters
than the contrast
exercise of the
gift
she
and
expectation
of her
nothingness
have
MacDonalds,
shipbuilders
two
brothers,
in Port
Glasgow
have also received the same
gift. They speak freely
and with a manner as
foreign
to them as the language
I heard them
speak
and
nothing
could be more
striking
of the animated and
apparently eloquent manner of their utterance and
gesture
I may say, of their natural manner in
soberness and awkwardness,
– 11-
as contrasted
with the
11
the same
opportunity
They
are staid sober
with
religion –
and of whom, in occasional them,
I have trusted intelligent
and full
recognition
their own
language.
The character of their
feelings
I have not had
of
ascertaining.
minded
persons
who have been much
engrossed
and
very
limited intercourse with
they
were
taught
of truth –
of God from their while their
apparent
coolness of feeling and absence of emotion has made me feel as if
they
had more
understanding
of what
Mary Campbell
that in sentences
than realisation
of what
they
seems to
seemed to believe. In all this
they
have been
just
the
opposite
is. The
gift
of
interpretation
have been also to some extent
given
to one of these brothers –
now and then he has been made to know while his brother
spoke
and tell in
English.
I may add that these have all referred to the
coming
of the Lord.1
Reports
hand the charismata.
activity
in Scotland
travelled
of the
flurry
of charismatic
south to Scott in London. In
July
he headed north to observe at first-
There were
by
this time nine
‘gifted’ people
on Clydeside.2 They
were
being
inundated
visitors from all over Britain,
many
tions on
Clydeside.
by swarms of, largely admiring, of whom, in turn,
began
to seek in
Scott, the prophet of a
by
these
particular
manifesta-
friends in
of the
‘gifts,’ Scott,
who had
prayer
a revival of the
apostolic gifts.3But
Church of the
Spirit,
was not
impressed
While most of his close
theological
Scotland at first stood
by
the
genuineness
been the most vocal, was not for over a
year
silent and
The reasons for Scott’s
of the unusual
phenomena
London are not
entirely clear, although Scott,
even at this
early stage, believed that he had reason to doubt the
‘tongues’
previously
reserved on the
subject. eventual
rejection
grounds.4 Also,
Scott
disapproved of the
‘gifted,’
the
MacDonalds,
early
silence and of Clydeside and later in
on
linguistic of the anti-intellectual tendencies for
instance, becoming
known for
fueling
their
evening
fire with classical books of literature.5 And
Mary
1 Campbell, op. cit.
2Boase, op. cit, p. 766.
3Ibid., p. 766; and Norton, op. cit., p. 125.
4See W. Hanna, Memoirs of Thomas Chalmers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1854), p. 205.
5Norton, op. cuit, p. 77.
– 12-
12
Campbell, acknowledge
work,
refused to
training, the charismatic
gifts.1
who was zealous for
foreign missionary
the need for
language study
and
appropriate
believing
that all would be
provided through
In
spite
of Scott’s silence,
nearly
all in his immediate Scottish
circle, at an
early stage, spoke
in favour of the
Clydeside
festations. John McLeod
Campbell God.2 Robert
Story,
the minister
charismatic mani- believed them to be the work of of
Roseneath, spoke
of the mani-
festations as
being ‘of God,
and not of men.’3 And Scott’s close
friend, Thomas Erskine, the Laird of Linlathen,
authenticity
of the charismatic in the house of the MacDonalds,
the charismata, closely
echoed Scott’s
was
deeply
committed to the events, and,
after
spending
six weeks embodied his immediate
impressions
of
(1831),
mously applauded
in a tract entitled On the
Gifts of
the
Spirit (1830).
His doctrine
both in this work and in his Brazen
Serpent
earlier work on the
Spirit.
Although
Scott’s close friends in the west of Scotland almost unani-
the charismatic outburst in its
early days,
Ann
Ker, whom Scott was to
marry
within the
year, critically
viewed the mani- festations from the start. On 11
May
1830 she wrote:
Yesterday
Stirling appeared
listeners than full
sympathisers
we were invited to come
up (to
Port
Glasgow);
about sixteen or twenty were assembled – from what I saw, we and Mrs.
to be the
only
members who seemed more like
connecting
, ‘
with them in the
strong groaning
were offered
up….
In
years
and tears with which their
supplications
many passages
in the
Prophets, they spoke
to Him as the God who had talked with Moses, and had done
mighty wonders of old, and
besought
Him now to shew Himself the same living, faithful,
and true
God,
in whose
sight
a thousand are as one
day,
and to fill them with his
Spirit,
that all the members of Christ’s
Body might
manifest that their Head is a living
Head…. At one time some
strange
words
(Disco, Capito, Halo Halo – seemed the sound of some of them) were
given him,
shout he uttered, and then
interpreted –
‘I come,
I come,’ etc.
During
all this time his voice was not the
only
which with tremendous
lStory, Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Robert Story, pp. 202-4.
2Campbell, op. crit
3Story, op. cit, p. 209.
– 13-
13
one that
spake,
at
many
times he was echoed
by
his sister
(she
up),
sometimes
who was
lately
raised sometimes with
eager,
earnest
with
deep groaning, expostulation,
and even with
piercing
cries and loud
shouting
as the
thought
excited. At these
times I felt
altogether
appalled
and
terrified,
from not
realising 1
‘
God in it, and felt that it gave just cause for
gainsayers
to scoff.l
Her
early impressions ‘gifts’
in
July
of 1830.
no doubt
partly
clouded Scott’s
approach
lished. The Scottish
condemned for their
impious
to the
as were the
majority
literature was
pub- organ,
for
instance,
claimed
they
should be
pitied
for
Although
Scott’s circle was not united on this matter, neither was anyone
in it
openly
hostile towards the
‘gifted,’
of
religious
leaders at the time. Much
opposition
Kirk’s
Evangelical
concerning
the charismatics: ‘Of these we can
only say
that if they are not full of
trickery, they
are full of
folly –
that if
they
should not be
pretensions,
their insane
illusions,
and looked after
by
their friends.2 The
religious
slander in its attacks on the
charismatics,
at
understanding
The secular
press
press freely employed
generally displayed
no
attempt events of
Clydeside.
Greenock Advertiser, for instance, and ridiculous.’3
an assualt on the charismatic Scott, Erskine
and
Irving.4
and
the
extraordinary
also
joined
the
attack,
the dismissing
the events as ‘insane
Review
finally
launched
of the charismatic
Clydeside
circle in accepting festations,
Even the
literary Edinburgh
4
activity by virulently ‘ reviewing
works
by
Irving
in London had not been
long
in
following
the lead of Scott’s
the
authenticity
and he now threw most of his
energy
into
preaching the
gifts
of the
Spirit.5 In July 1830,
while Scott was still in
Scotland,
a conference on
prophecy
Irving
attended 1826
approximately
fifty religious
since its
inception,
mani-
on
at
Albury Park,
where since leaders had met
annually
for a
The
Albury
Conference had,
of the
Holy
fortnight
to discuss
apocalyptic subjects.
emphasised prayed
for ‘an
outpouring
Spirit,’
but had not
sought
the restoration of the
apostolic gifts.6
The
1 Boase, op. cuit, pp. 764-5.
(Edinburgh, 1831), p.
5Strachan, op. cit, pp. 16, 73, 76.
6Boase, op. cit, p. 751.
2The Edinburgh Christian Instructor, vol. 29 (Edinburgh, 1830), pp. 502-4. 3’The Row Heresy and Gareloch Miracles,’ Greenock Advertiser, 11 June 1830. 4Pretended Miracles – Irving, Scott, and Erskine,’ The Edinburgh Review, vol. 53
289.
14
14
extraordinary
events of
Clydeside, however,
had excited the interest of those at
Albury,
and
Irving,
a
leading light
at these
conferences, encouraged
his
colleagues
to
pray
for a revival of the
spiritual gifts.
As well as
hearing reports
of the charismatic outburst in
Scotland,
the Conference studied
together
Scott’s
Neglected
Truths.1 The mem- bers of the
Albury
Conference
formally
resolved that it was their
‘duty to
pray
for the revival of the
gifts
manifested in the
primitive Church; which are
wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing miracles, prophecy, dis- cerning
of
spirits,
kinds of
tongues,
and
interpretation
of
tongues.’2 They
also declared that a
responsibility lay
with them ‘to
enquire into the state of those
gifts
said to be now
present
in the West of Scotland.’3
A number of
groups
travelled north to
personally investigate
the Clydeside manifestations,
one such
group being
led
by
J. B. Cardale, a leader of the Albury Conference, and later the first
Apostle
of the Catholic
Apostolic
Church.
Cardale,
a solicitor in the
supreme court, with five fellow travellers headed north to Port
Glasgow
in
August 1830,
and after three weeks of constant and close observation con- cluded that the
‘gifts’
were of God.
Upon
his return to London, Cardale described the
prophecies, tongues,
and even
singing
in
tongues,
in an article submitted to The
Morning
Watch.4 The Cardale
family and others in London now
began
to meet
regularly
for prayer to seek the apostolic gifts.
Meanwhile Scott was
increasingly coming
under fire from the Church of Scotland for his heterodox
theology
of God’s universal
love, which stood in stark contrast to the Westminster Confession’s doctrine of limited
atonement, whereby
the love of God was restricted to the elect. In October 1830 Scott
claimed,
before the London
Presbytery
of the Scots Kirk, that the Confession’s doctrine of double
predestination was a negation of the
Gospel.5
On the basis of this Scott was
charged with
heresy, ecclesiastically tried,
and
finally deposed
from the
llbid., p. 750.
2Ibid., p. 777.
3Ibid.
4J. B. Cardale, ‘On the Extraordinary Manifestations in Port Glasgow,’ The Morning Watch, vol. 2 (London, 1831).
‘
5See ‘The Scots Presbytery, London,’ The World, 18 October 1830.
– 15-
15
ministry by
the Church of Scotland’s General
Assembly
in May 1831.1
After his
heresy trial,
Scott returned to
London,
where a month earlier Mrs. Cardale had
spoken
in unknown
tongues
and
prophesied.2 Early morning prayer meetings
were now
organised
at
Irving’s
church in Regent
Square
to pray specifically for the restoration of the
apostolic gifts.3
At these
meetings,
Mrs. Cardale and her
daughter,
and later others, began frequently
to exercise their
‘gifts’
of
prophecy
and tongues.
Scott’s reaction to these
particular
manifestations was recorded
by
a
visiting
minister at one of the
morning
sessions:
‘
In the course of the
meeting,
a
lady,
after
rocking
backwards and forward for a few moments,
sprang
to her feet and voci- ferated inarticulate cries which
passed
at
length
into
rapid repetitions
of the
phrase
‘He is
coming!’ Irving
threw himself forward on his elbows, and buried his face in his
hands,
as if overcome with awe; but Scott, who had offered
prayer
earlier in the
meeting,
and whom I now discerned under the beams which had
just struggled through
the brown air into the
church,
sat erect,
with
compressed lips
and knit
brows,
as if
keeping
his intellect
poised
for the formation of right
judgment.
The two men were revealed in those attitudes.4
Scott soon
began
to
express
his
misgivings
about the charismatic phenomena occurring
at
Regent Square.
As Scott
increasingly
dis- associated himself from the
phenomena, Irving,
on the other
hand, committed himself more and more to the
authenticity
of the mani- festations.
Although
Scott continued to believe that the
apostolic gifts should characterise
every age
of the Church, he was forced to
disagree with
Irving’s acceptance
of the
particular
manifestations on
Clydeside and in
Regent Square,
for he now
began
to
regard
these
extraordinary
lSee ‘Case of Mr. Scott – Heresy,’ Caledonian Mercury, 28 May 1831.
2 Concerning the
Cardale house meetings and then the development. of the charismata into Irving’s church, see Strachan, op. cit,
especially chapters 9, 11.
3J. Hair, Regent Square (London, 1899), pp. 104-5.
4C. M. Birrell, ‘Some Recollections, of Prof. Scott,’
Sunday
at Home (London, 1881), p. 664.
– 16-
16
phenomena
as the result of
religious How Scott
explained
the
extraordinary
certain. To turn his back, however, on the charismatic
which he had been
closely
associated
,
hallucination and mesmerism.1
healings
on
Clydeside
is not
activity
with and
seminally involved,
and to
with
to behold.’2
Presbytery
‘ with
some of the
Albury
Conference clesiastical
not
regard
as
genuine
the charismatic ised the new denomination.
and
partly
a
spiritual
particular
charismatic
phenomena
disagree
with his closest
friend,
was for Scott
extremely painful.
The look of
anguish
on his face after scenes of stem
disagreement Irving was,
said his
wife,
‘almost terrible
The final rift between Scott and
Irving, however,
did not come until ,almost a year and a half after Mrs. Cardale’s first charismatic utterance. By
this
stage Irving
and his followers had been forced
by
the London
to leave the Scots Kirk in
Regent Square,
after which
they,
body,
named the Catholic
Apostolic
leaders,
formed a
separate
ec-
Church.3 Scott could manifestations which character-
‘
of these
They were,
he now
said,
‘a delusion
partly,
work not of God.’4 Scott’s
rejection
was soon echoed
by
his Scottish friends, Erskine,
McLeod
Campbell
and
Story.5 They
did
not, however, abandon their
theology
of the
Spirit,
and Erskine’s statement in 1837 is typical
of the
group’s position,
when he said:
whose
expectations
of the New
I still continue to think, that to
any one
on,
the declarations
of those
gifts
from the church
than their
re-appearance
are formed
by,
and founded Testament,
the
disappearance must be a
greater difficulty possibly
be.6
could
(Manchester, 1881), p.
1J.
Finlayson, ‘Professor
A. J. Scott,’ The Owens College Magazine, vol. 13
113.
2H. Solly, These Eighty Years, vol. 2 (London, 1893), p. 78.
,
activity,
fruingite (New York, 1946).
3For a history of this denomination and for an account of the subsequent charismatic
see P. E. Shaw, The Catholic
Apostolic Church,
Sometimes Called
4W. Hanna, Letters of Thomas Erskine, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1877), pp. 204-5.
5See Ibid., p. 209; and Story, Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Robert Story, pp. 226, 231-2.
6T. Erskine, The Doctrine of Election (London, 1837), p. 571.
17
17
the
new,
and
partly charismatic,
where he
compassionately improvement
half of his life were social
justice with the
apostolic
the first
principal
Scott’s
theology
of the
realm,
British
the latter But his fascination
known as Manchester Uni-
gift
of
tongues
Deposed
from the Church of Scotland
ministry
and dissociated from
denomination,
Spirit,
rather than
taking
him in the direction of
explicitly religious thought
and
activity, increasingly
led him into the
socio-political
gave
much of his time and
energy
to the
of the
neglected
and often
oppressed 19th-century working
classes. The
signs
of the
Spirit
which characterised
and
equality.
gifts
did not
entirely fade,
and even late in
life, as
of what later became
versity,
he can be found
studying
the New Testament
with interest.1 From the late 1830s, however, Scott had ceased to
give
to the charismata.
of interest for us
today,
not
primarily
because of his later educational
thought,
however related
logical emphases,
but rather because some of his
early theological
con- victions in the first half of the 19th
century prophetically anticipated major
features of the life and
message
of the
20th-century
much
theological
attention
and
socio-political
On this
subject
he is
that is to his
early
theo-
.
atonement,
Church. Just he must be seen
as,
in his
theology
of Christ’s unlimited as a
prophet
enunciated
he
prophetically anticipated
the
many
manifestations
evident
Church.
of God’s love for all men and women, a
message clearly
by
the Church
today, so,
in his
early
charismatic
not
only 20th-century
of the charismatic
in
nearly every major
branch of the
20th-century
teaching,
pentecostalism
but life of the
Spirit
which are
Christian
1 See J. Johnson, George MacDonald (London, 1906), p. 65.
– 18-
18
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