[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]PART THREE[/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]In late summer of 1830, Irving, with his wife and daughter, spent more than a week in Dublin at the castle of Lady Powerscourt, a friend of the Irvings. Irving traveled around the Dublin area preaching to thousands. During one eight day period, he preached thirteen times. At one church so many people came to listen to him that one of the windows of the church was removed to enable the people outside to hear. [/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]The Rev. Edward Irving, who our readers may recollect is minister of the Caledonian Chapel in London, preached an able and admirable discourse yesterday, at the Scots' Chapel.... This place of worship was not only crowded to suffocation, but several hundreds assembled outside on benches placed at the south-west window, the frame of which had been previously removed, from which he was audibly heard by the external as well as internal portion of the congregation. [Saunder's News-Letter, 18th Sept. 1830 / from Oliphant, p.300][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Lady Powerscourt visited the Albury conference in 1827 [Source?] and had become very interested in prophetic subjects. She is said to have read every book on prophecy available at the time.[/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif][She] was so delighted with them [the Albury conferences] that she established a similar series of meetings at Powerscourt House near Bray [Fuller 1957 p.51/Neatby p.38][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Irving attended some of these meetings. [Fuller 1957 p.51/Froom, V3, p.585] [/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Another close friend of Lady Powerscourt, himself from the Dublin area, was John Nelson Darby. It was said that at one time Darby and Lady Powerscourt were engaged, but they canceled their engagement because of his heavy traveling schedule. [Reference???] Darby also came to the conferences sponsored by Lady Powerscourt, attending with Irving.[/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]The late Dr. Harry Ironside had a thirty year background with the Plymouth Brethren, the denomination Darby helped found. He was a believer in the pre-tribulational rapture. He has even been called the "prince of dispensational preachers." [Ryrie, p.31] Ironside writes about the beginning of the pre-tribulation theory: [/FONT]
… [FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]a group of earnest Christians had been meeting in the castle of Lady Powerscourt for the study of prophecy. To these meetings Mr. Darby and Mr. Bellett were invited. Here also they met George V. Wigram, who was to become one of Mr. Darby's most earnest collaborators in after years. ... Many clergymen attended, and quite a few who were linked with the Irvingites, thus giving rise to the erroneous impression that the Brethren Movement was more or less linked with the 'Catholic Apostolic Church'. ... It was at these meetings that the precious truth of the rapture of the Church was brought to light; [Emphasis mine.] that is, the coming of the Lord in the air to take away His Church before the great tribulation should begin on earth. The views brought out at the Powerscourt castle not only largely formed the views of Brethren elsewhere, but as years went on obtained wide publication in denominational circles, chiefly through the writings of such men as Darby, Bellett, Newton, S. P. Tregelles, Andrew Jukes, Wigram,... [Ironside, p.23][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Dr. Tregelles, editor of the Greek New Testament and one of the foremost biblical scholars of the nineteenth century, was involved in promoting the "Secret Rapture" for a time (note his name in Dr. Ironside's quote above), but he had a change of heart. Later he writes: [/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a secret rapture of the Church at a secret coming, until this was given forth as an "utterance" in Mr. Irving's Church, from what was there received as being the voice of the Spirit. But whether anyone ever asserted such a thing or not, it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology arose. It came not from Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God, ... After the opinion of a secret advent had been adopted, many expressions in older writers were regarded as supporting it; in which, however, the word "secret" does not mean unperceived or unknown, but simply secret in point of time. [Tregelles, p.35][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Dr. Robert Cameron, one-time editor of "Watchword and Truth," claims that[/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]...until the days of Edward Irving, who was excluded from the Presbyterian church for heresy, no one ever heard of this "coming for," and "coming with" the saints; no one ever intimated that the saints would not be on the earth in the days of the Antichrist. [Robert Cameron, "Notes by the Way," 'Watchword and Truth', XXIV (January, 1902), 395. / from Fuller, p.112-3][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]no hint of any approach to such a belief can be found in any Christian literature from Polycarp down, until the strange utterances given out in the Church of Edward Irving ... by women speaking in tongues." ... Then, according to Cameron, "they recovered the long-neglected truth that a 'Second Coming' of the Lord was 'the hope' of the Apostolic Church" ... Since that day was then eighteen centuries closer than in Apostolic days, they "became possessed of the feeling that it was the 'midnight' hour of Christendom, that the Advent was at the very door, ..[Theissen, p.188-9][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif][Check full quote.][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]They were claiming that the "secret pre-tribulational rapture" existed in the apostolic church and was "long neglected" until they recovered it.[/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Benjamin W. Newton was a close associate of Darby in the early years of the Plymouth Brethren movement. Darby later excommunicated Newton for disagreeing with him on certain theological points. One such disagreement is described by Newton. [/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]At last Darby wrote from Cork, saying he had discovered a method of reconciling the whole dispute, and would tell me when he came. When he did, it turned out to be the 'Jewish Interpretation'. The Gospel of Matthew was not teaching Church Truth but Kingdom Truth, and so on. He explained it to me and I said 'Darby, if you admit that distinction you virtually give up Christianity.' Well, they kept on at that until they worked out the result as we all know it. The Secret Rapture was bad enough but this was worse [WHO?/MacPherson, p.199][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Mr. Kelly further remarks, that "it so happens that, during a visit to Plymouth in the summer of 1845, Mr. B. W. Newton, told me that, many years before, Mr. Darby wrote to him a letter in which he said that a suggestion was made to him by Mr. T. Tweedy (a spiritual man, and most devoted ex-clergyman among the Irish brethren), which, to his mind quite cleared up the difficulty previously felt on this very question. [WHO?/Carlsson, p.69][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]But since they were Bible students and not fanatics, they had difficulty with Matt. 24:29,30, where we read: "Immediately after the tribulation ... shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven." For three years they were perplexed about the meaning of this statement. The tribulation had not come, nor had the "abomination" that preceded it been seen; "therefore the Advent was not historically imminent, however it might be to the heart."... At that time a godly clergyman, by the name of Tweedy, came from England to Dublin and solved the problem by teaching that the so-called Olivet Discourse was for the Jews, that the Church would be caught up, secretly, before the tribulation. This interpretation these godly men accepted and proclaimed to the world. J. N. Darby is especially mentioned as giving it currency by speech and pen. [Theissen, p.188-9][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]CHECK QUOTE[/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif][Fuller 1957, p.56][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]While not definitely saying that Tweedy got this teaching from the women who spake in tongues in Irving's meetings (he [Cameron] says that Irving taught it too), he seems to insinuate that is the case. [Theissen, p.189][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]CHECK QUOTE[/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]A brief anecdote on Darby's tendency of reinterpreting the Bible can be seen in the following quote by an early member of Darby's Plymouth Brethren movement. [/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]... I am a constant reader of my Bible, and I soon found that what I was taught to believe did not always agree with what my Bible said. I came to see that I must either part company with John Darby, or my precious Bible, and I chose to cling to my Bible and part from Mr. Darby. [Reese, p.320][/FONT]
[FONT=Bitstream Charter, serif]Thus, George Muller, one of the great saints of the 1800's, chose to believe his Bible instead of what John Darby taught. Muller, incidentally, was excommunicated by Darby because he also disagreed with Darby on certain points of theology.[/FONT]