Showing posts with label Erskine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Erskine. Show all posts

Thursday 6 September 2018

Revivalists ....back on the road again


The period of Revivalists is a period of interest to us even more so in these days as you read this brief history. Robert Murray McCheyne and Andrew Bonar, during their college years came "under the spell of the meteoric message of Edward Irwing before his excesses in doctrine had lead him far away from the beaten track" (whatever that means!).



This..challenged and stretched the Calvinistic views that prevailed


Irving had, as with Thomas Erskine and John Macleod Campbell been not far from the debates as they challenged and stretched the Calvinistic views that prevailed. In an era of all things mechanical, steam engines, bridges, and great advancements in construction, perhaps the Christian walk was not a simple tick box check-list, a system or procedure of sorts but something far more.
In an age where doctrine and understanding had primarily been handed over or handed down through Divinity Colleges, questioning the stance of the establishment was seen as weak faith or ungodly. Irwing, Erskine and Campbell, continued to debate the person of Christ, the nature and scope of Atonement, election and eternal punishment, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is evident that many Churchmen seeking the closer spiritual life saw something in Irwing that appealed to them, yet their education and influence did not allow them to enter in. 


Erskine: “The disappearance of these gifts from the Church, must be a greater difficulty than their reappearance could be...”

Around 50 people were meeting in Henry Drummond's house at Albury, to study the prophetic books of the Bible. Out of these meeting came, in time, the Catholic Apostolic Church. Two things that were in the forefront of concern at these meetings in Albury, were:
  1. Gifts of the Holy Spirit as seen at Pentecost.
  2. Expectation of the second Coming, in the near future.