The Life Of Edward Irving

The ministry of Edward Irving in London, from its dramatic beginning in 1822 to its tragic close in 1834, when the preacher was only 42, became a talking-point of the 19th Century. And two of the ablest literary figures of the last century, Margaret Oliphant and Thomas Carlyle, ensured that the memory of those remarkable years would not be lost.

Arnold Dallimore, the biographer of George Whitefield, came to the conviction that although much has been written on Irving since Oliphant and Carlyle, there was need for a new popular account. Strangely, the same spiritual issues which were raised by Irving’s ministry have again become prominent in recent years.

The Life of Irving is an easily read and moving story, told with sympathy and honesty. It also seeks to deal accurately with the extraordinary claims which became associated with Irving’s later ministry. Certainly Irving drew the affection of most of the evangelical Christians who knew him. R.M. M’Cheyne, for instance, could write, ‘I look back on him with awe, as on the saints and martyrs of old’. Yet the distinctive features of Irving’s ministry caused considerable alarm among the evangelical churches. The author reveals the reasons why, as well as giving a gripping portrait of this remarkable man.