IRVING, EDWARD (1792-1834), Scottish church divine, generally regarded as the founder of the "Catholic Apostolic Church" (q.v.), was born at Annan, Dumfriesshire, on Aug. 4, 1792. At the age of 13 he entered the University of Edinburgh. In 1809 he graduated M.A.; and in 181o, on the recommendation of Sir John Leslie, he was chosen master of an academy newly established at Haddington, where he became the tutor of Jane Welsh, afterwards Mrs. Carlyle. He became engaged in 1812 to Isabella Martin, whom in 1823 he married; but meanwhile he gradually fell in love with Jane Welsh, and she with him. He tried to get out of his engagement with Miss Martin, but was pre vented by her family. Irving introduced Carlyle to Jane Welsh in 1821. Irving left Haddington for Kirkcaldy in 1812. Complet ing his divinity studies by a series of partial sessions, he was "licensed" to preach in June 1815, but continued to teach for three years. In the summer of 1818 he resigned his mastership and went to Edinburgh. He was meditating a missionary tour in Persia when, in 1819, he was appointed assistant to Dr. Chal mers in St. John's parish, Glasgow. Irving's preaching awakened little interest among the congregation of Chalmers, Chalmers himself, with no partiality for its bravuras and flourishes, com paring it to "Italian music, appreciated only by connoisseurs"; but as a missionary among the poorer classes he wielded an influ ence that was altogether unique. In 1822 he was ordained min ister of the Caledonian church, Hatton Garden, London. There his sermons at once attracted a crowd of fashionable people.
For years the subject of prophecy had occupied much of his thoughts, and his belief in the near approach of the second advent had received corroboration in the work of a Jesuit priest, writing under the assumed Jewish name of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra. In 1827 he published a translation of it, accompanied with an elo quent preface. Probably the religious opinions of Irving had gained breadth and comprehensiveness from his intercourse with Coleridge, but gradually his chief interest in Coleridge's philos ophy centred round that which was mystical and obscure, and it probably accounts for his adoption of the doctrine of millenarian ism. The first stage of his later development, which resulted in the establishment of the "Irvingite" or "Holy Catholic Apostolic Church," in 1832, was associated with conferences at his friend Henry Drummond's seat at Albury concerning unfulfilled proph ecy, followed by study of the prophetical books and especially of the Apocalypse, and by several series of sermons on prophecy both in London and the provinces. Crowds filled the largest churches
of Edinburgh in the early summer mornings to hear his apocalyptic lectures in 1828. In 183o his hopes were aroused by the seeming actual revival in a remote corner of Scotland of those apostolic gifts of prophecy and healing which he believed to be kept in abeyance by the absence of faith.
Irving welcomed the new "power" with a conviction which was unshaken by the remonstrances or desertion of his dearest friends, the recantation of some of the principal agents of the "gifts," his own declension into a subordinate position, the meagre and barren results of the manifestations and their general rejection both by the church and the world. His excommunication by the presbytery of London, in 1830, for publishing his doctrines re garding the humanity of Jesus Christ, and the condemnation of these opinions by the General Assembly of the Church of Scot land in the following year, were secondary episodes. The "irregu larities" connected with the manifestation of the "gifts" gradu ally estranged his own congregation, and on the complaint of the trustees to the presbytery of London, whose authority they had formerly rejected, he was declared unfit to remain the minister of the National Scotch Church of Regent square. Af ter he and those who adhered to him (describing themselves as of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church) had in 1832 removed to a new build ing in Newman street, he was in March 1833 deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland by the presbytery of Annan on the original charge of heresy. With the sanction of the "power" he was now after some delay reordained "chief pastor of the church assembled in Newman street." He died on Dec. 7, The writings of Edward Irving published during his lifetime were For the Oracles of God, Four Orations (1823) For Judg ment to come (1823) ; Babylon and Infidelity foredoomed (1826) ; Sermons, etc. (3 vols., 1828) ; Exposition of the Book of Revela tion (1831) ; an introduction to a translation of Ben-Ezra; and an introduction to Horne's Commentary on the Psalms. His col lected works were published in 5 volumes, edited by Gavin Carlyle. See also the article CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH.
The Life of Edward Irving, by Mrs. Oliphant, appeared in 1862 in 2 vols. Among a large number of biographies published previously, that by Washington Wilks (1854) has some merit. See also Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age; Coleridge's Notes on English Divines; Carlyle's Miscellanies, and Carlyle's Reminiscences, vol. i. (1881).