The Radical Reformation Tradition: Anabaptists, English Separatists ...

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120 Divergent Riverscharity and faith, the classical Trinitarian baptismal formula, Aaronic Blessing, Lord'sPrayer and Grace.This heterodox Church thus provided a baptismal rite with an emphasis onSwedenborg's understanding of the Trinity and, indirectly, his Christology. Theemphasis was also soteriological, ecclesiological and eschatological - saving fromsin, but by admission to the New Church through belief in Swedenborg's teaching,particularly concerning the Trinity, in the New Age.Three Nineteenth·Century Restorationist ChurchesThe Catholic Apostolic ChurchThe origins of the Catholic Apostolic Church can be traced to aseries of meetingsheld at Albury Park, the horne of the wealthy banker and MP, Henry Drummond(1786-1860). These meetings brought clergy and laity of different denominationstogether to discuss biblical passages about prophecy, and the delegates were of theopinion that the return of Christ would precede a millennium, and that Christ's returnwas imminent. One of the signs of the approaching parousia would be the outpouringof prophecy and gifts of the Spirit. Amongst the group was Edward Irving, ministerof a Scottish congregation at Cross Street, Hatton Garden, London (cf. one of the NewChurch congregations) which later relocated to Regent Square. Several of the AlburyPark group were members of Irving's church.In 1830 reports of the miraculous healing of Mary Campbell in Port Glasgow, andof the prophecies which accompanied it, reached the Albury group, and delegates weresent to investigate. Mary Camp bell moved to London and became a member ofIrving's congregation. They prayed for the manifestations of the Spirit, and in 1831'tongues' and other gifts of the Spirit became part of public worship at Irving's church.Not an members of the church were enthusiastic about this, and Irving, already undersuspicion for holding unorthodox Christological views, was declared unfit to beminister. He and so me 800 of the congregation left the Regent Square building. In1833 the Church of Scotland deposed Irving from the ministry.Meanwhile, as a result of the London manifestations and prophecies given byRobert Baxter, prayer meetings were held at Albury Park, and lohn Cardale andHenry Drummond emerged as leaders of what would become the Catholic ApostolicChurch. Prophecies led to the calling and setting-apart of twelve Apostles who inturn instituted a ministry of Angels (bishops), EIders (priests) and Deacons, and thefounding of the new Church. 59 As the community believed that they were living inthe last days, no provision was made for fiIling the places of the Apostles as they59 See Columba Flegg, Garhered Under Aposries. A Study (i!'rhe Carholic Apostolic Church, ClarendonPress. Oxford, 1992,
Some New Churches ofthe 18th and 19th Centuries121died. With the death of the last Apostle in 1901, there could be no further ordinations,and the Church gradually entropied.Initially this Church inherited a Church of Scotland pattern of worship, anddirections for worship were issued in 1838. However, under the direction of theApostles, a liturgy with increasing ceremonial began to evolve. The first printed ritewas published in 1843, and it continued to evolve until 1880. The liturgiographer ofthe Church was lohn Cardale, who also wrote a commentary on the liturgicalrites. 60As a worshipping congregation rather than a meeting of delegates interested inprophecy, the Catholic Apostolic Church had its roots in Edward Irving's Church ofScotland congregation in London, and its theological foundations were Irving's. Irvingpublished aseries of homilies on baptism in 1828. 61 Although he worked with theReformed Confessions of the Church of Scotland, Irving had also been influenced bythe sacramental teaching of the sixteenth-century Church of England divine, RichardHooker, and he also expected, or hoped for, a new outpouring of the Spirit. Hishomilies, therefore, represent ablend of the Augustinian emphasis on original sin andbaptism as remission of sin, covenant theology, and concern for the work of the HolySpirit. As regards the first of these, he wrote:... as the rite is emblematical of purification, and there is no outward impurity tobe washed away, the impurity signified must be inward, or spiritual impurity. Butthis child hath not yet been conscious of good or ill, and cannot have contractedany guilt, being admissible to this ordinance as soon as born: it cannot, therefore,be intended against actual impurity contracted by itself: it must be for the sake ofsome impurity which it hath brought with it into the world, that Christ hathappointed it to be washed with the waters of Baptism. Here, then, to any mindwhich reflecteth upon the rite of Baptism, is revealed the fundamental doctrine ofrevealed Religion, that we are shapen in sin, and brought forth in iniquity, and aretransgressors from the womb of our mother. 62Following traditional Reformed theology, Irving also appealed to the idea of covenantto justify infant baptism. On analogy with circumcision,'" so do I argue now, that our parents, having had faith, and made profession ofthe same upon every occasion in the presence of the church, had likewise therighteousness which is by faith, and transmitted a holy seed unto their children;in the sign of which they also are, by the seal of Baptism, set apart for a holypeople unto the Lord. The sacrament of Baptism signifieth, therefore, that we wereborn in covenant, and free to inherit all the privileges of the covenant, whereofthe two principal are the remission of sins and the receiving of the HolyGhOSt. 6360 lohn Cardale, Readings in the Liturgy and Divine Offices 0/ the Church, 2 vols, Thomas Bosworth.London, 1874-75.61 Edward Irving, Homilies on the Sacraments, Vol. I, Baptism, Andrew Panton, London, 1828.62 Ibid., pp. 140-41.63 Ibid., pp. 170---71.
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