Cataloguing Christ’s Second Coming

The life of Edward Irving, minister of the National Scotch Church, London .../ Oliphant, Margaret, 1865. New College Library SPecial Collections SHAW 3

The life of Edward Irving, minister of the National Scotch Church, London …/ Oliphant, Margaret, 1865. New College Library Special Collections SHAW 3

We’re delighted that the cataloguing of nearly 500 items held in the Shaw Collection on the Catholic Apostolic Church at New College Library, is now complete.

While further research is required to verify the history of this collection, it may have been put together by P.E. Shaw, author of The Catholic Apostolic Church, sometimes called Irvingite (A Historical Study); New York, 1946.

The Catholic Apostolic Church movement was inspired by Edward Irving, who began his career as a Church of Scotland minister who worked with Thomas Chalmers on his urban ministry projects. Irving moved to London where he became a strikingly popular preacher, predicting that the world was irredeemably evil and that the return of Christ and the end of the world was at hand. His charismatic services included controversial spiritual phenomena such as speaking in tongues.

The collection covers the liturgy, doctrines and government of the Catholic Apostolic Church movement, along with sermons and addresses by prominent figures in the church. This includes items written by eight of the ‘twelve apostles’ who were appointed after Irving’s death in 1835 – Henry Drummond John Bate Cardale, Nicholas Armstrong, Francis Valentine Woodhouse, Henry Dalton, Thomas Carlyle, Francis Sitwell and William Dow.

The Catholic Apostolic Church believed in the imminent second coming of Christ, and the necessity of the restoration of a ‘perfect’ church in preparation for this event.  Missionary activity took the movement to mainland Europe, Canada, and the USA, and the Church claimed 6,000 members in 30 congregations in 1851. In the twentieth century the movement dwindled and eventually fell silent.

The testimony of the Apostles to the ecclesiastical and temporal heads of Christianity : composed in the year 1836. Chicago, Ill. : New Apostolic Church of North America, 1932. New College Library Special Collections Shaw 27.
The testimony of the Apostles to the ecclesiastical and temporal heads of Christianity : composed in the year 1836. Chicago, Ill. : New Apostolic Church of North America, 1932. New College Library Special Collections SHAW 27.

The cataloguing of this collection was made possible by the generous donation of Rev. Dr. Robert Funk.

Sources

Oxford Companion to British History

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Lambeth Palace Library Research Guide : The Catholic Apostolic Church Collection

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian, Divinity, with thanks to Janice Gailani, Funk Projects Cataloguer.

Manuscripts on display for Elizabeth Melville Day

From Monday 16th June to Friday 27th June manuscript work by Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross is on display in New College Library. Two rare examples of early modern women’s writing are displayed together for the first time as part of the events around Elizabeth Melville Day on Saturday 21st June.

Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross, was the first Scotswoman to see her work in print with the publication of her mini-epic ‘Ane Godlie Dreame’ in 1603.

She was the daughter of Sir James Melville of Halhill (1535/6–1617), the diplomat and autobiographer.  Elizabeth was at the centre of a network supporting the exiled and imprisoned Presbyterian ministers, and her strong Calvinist faith is expressed in her writings.

Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections La.III.347

Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections La.III.347

On display is a volume of original letters,  received by the University of Edinburgh in 1878 as part of the David Laing collection.  It contains two holograph letters by Elizabeth to her son James (dated 1625 and 1629), nine to Reverend John Livingstone (eight holographs and one 19th century transcription, dated 1629-32), and one holograph to the Countess of Wigtoun (1630), and is a unique source of information about the poet.

Mss Bru 2, New College Library Special Collections

Mss Bru 2, New College Library Special Collections

This volume is displayed together with the Bruce Manuscripts, from New College Library Special Collections. The Bruce Manuscripts contains twenty nine sermons on Hebrews XI, preached in 1590-91 by Robert Bruce,  Edinburgh minister. In 2002 Dr Jamie Reid-Baxter uncovered nearly 3500 lines of verse attributed to Elizabeth Melville contained in this manuscript.

Dr Joseph Marshall, Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarian & Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

Picture puzzles from the Paterson Bible Collection at New College Library

I’m delighted to be able to report that all 278 items in the Paterson Bible Collection at New College Library are now catalogued online. This collection turned up a number of surprises for us along the way, not least the number of items that are not Bibles. In a previous blog post about this collection, I mentioned how it represents the life and work of its collector, John Paterson (1776–1855)  a Glasgow trained missionary for
the Congregational Church, who served throughout northern Europe.

PAT 215We were intrigued by this 1727 Book of Common Prayer (PAT 215) because of its fine binding with a fish and crown design. We haven’t discovered the significance of this design and would be interested if anyone could tell us?

PAT 216PAT 216

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We loved the beautiful illustrations in this book (PAT 216) in Danish and Latin on the Sami and Finnmark fylke (1767). Perhaps Paterson acquired this book in the early years of the nineteenth century, when he worked with the Swedish and Finnish Bible Societies translating the Bible into Finnish, Icelandic, Sami, Samogitian, and Swedish.

PAT 224We were surprised by the graphic woodcut illustrations in De sanctorum martyrum cruciatibus by Antonio Galliano, (1660, PAT 224). This is a manual of methods of torture, persecution and martyrdom faced by the early Christian marytrs.

The cataloguing of this collection was made possible by the generous donation of the Rev. Dr Robert Funk.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity & Janice Gailani, Funk Projects Cataloguer