certain dreadful judgments would fall on London in three weeks, explained explicitly to mean three literal weeks. When the fulfilment did not take place, they re-explained that, after all, it was three prophetic weeks that were in- tended— which corrected dating also was, of course, stulti- fied in the process of time. Above all, of course, they pre- dicted the speedy coming of the Lord, and the setting up of His personal reign on earth, of which, they explained, the present diffusion of the spiritual gifts among them was the preparation and the sign. ''Christians," cries John Lacy, "now only look upon Christ as dead and ascended into heaven. But where — where's the expectation taught of His coming again? A doctrine that has annexed to it the powers, the mighty gifts of the Holy Ghost engaged by promises. Is the state of Christianity now so perfect that the powers and gifts of the Holy Ghost extraordinary are not worthy expecting or regarding? . . . Therefore the extraordinary dispensation to prepare so extraordinary a revolution . . . sure there needs something extraordinary to prepare for so tremendous, useful, so joyous and blissful a state of the Church on earth. Nay, the wisest do need an extraordinary call for it."8
This case of the "French Prophets" has not been ad- duced because it is better fitted in itself than a number of similar movements to illustrate the general subject. It has commended itself to our notice because of its long history and its pathetic significance during its connection with the persecutions in the Cevennes; and particularly because of certain peculiarities of its English development which re- call the Irvingite movement to which we wish to devote this lecture. Among these may be numbered its close con- nection with chiliastic vagaries and the expectation of the speedy coming of the Lord, and also the circumstance that it left behind it a new sect in Christendom, to preserve in some sort its memory. Out of the activities of some of the followers of the "French Prophets" originated the
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people called Shakers, who, like the Catholic Apostolic Church, sprung from the Irvingite movement, have pro^ tracted some sort of existence to our day.
The religious atmosphere of the earlier decades of the nineteenth century was exceedingly unsettled and filled with a restless desire for change. In particular premille- narian extravagances were rife, and men were heatedly look- ing for the early coming of the Lord. It was out of this soil that Irvingism grew, predicting the immediate advent of Christ, and proclaiming the restoration of the extraor- dinary offices and gifts of the Apostolic age, along with an elaborate church organization, in preparation for His com- ing. Never have pretensions to gifts and powers of a supernatural order suffered more speedily and definitely the condemnation of facts. The predicted coming of the Lord did not take place: the "Apostles" appointed to re- ceive Him at His coining were gradually called to their eternal home, and still He came not; the pretenders to supernatural gifts one after another awoke to the true state of the case and acknowledged themselves deluded. But the sect of Irvingites, broken in spirit, torn with dissension, altered in its pretensions, still lives on and adjusts itself to its blasted hopes as best it may.9
The views of Edward Irving, the founder of the sect, on the special matter now before us, the persistence or revival of the Apostolic charismata in the modern church, may be read at large in two papers, entitled respectively "The Church with her endowment of holiness and power" and "The Gifts of the Holy Ghost commonly called super- natural," which are printed at the end of his Collected Writ- ings, edited by his nephew, Gavin Carlyle. One or two extracts will bring before us the essential elements of his teaching.
"I have shown," he writes, "the great purpose and end of this endowment of Spiritual gifts: that purpose and end is not temporary but perpetual, till Christ's coming again ;
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