This year’s Theological Conference will be held, God willing, in Glasgow, on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 27-28, DV, with Rev K D Macleod as Chairman. The following speakers and subjects have been agreed:
The Theology of the Marrow Controversy – Rev D W B Somerset (Tuesday 2.15 pm)
The Apostle James on Faith and Works – Rev W A Weale (Tuesday 7.00 pm)
Christ’s Salvation – Rev C J Hembd (Wednesday 10.00 am)
Philip Melanchthon – Dr R J Dickie (Wednesday 2.15 pm)
Perseverance – Rev A W MacColl (Wednesday 7.00 pm)
All times are BST.
Live Streaming: The conference will be live-streamed via Webex as follows: (1) use the Webex app on your phone or access Webex using the following URL: https://web.webex.com/sign-in (2) Press the “Join a meeting” button (3) Enter meeting number 147420587 and press enter (4) Enter your name and email address in the spaces provided and press “Join meeting” (5) Please make sure the buttons at the bottom of the screen page show “unmute” and “start video” (that means you are mute and your video is not active).
All sessions, except the Wednesday morning session will be audio only. The Wednesday session at 10:00am (led by Rev. Caleb Hembd on Christ’s Salvation) will be livestreamed in both audio and video. Once the session has concluded and the Chairman has invited questions you may unmute yourself and ask your question as invited. nb: Please ensure that your video remains off (i.e. the button at the bottom of the screen should show “start video”). Please note that we have no way of removing your video from the screen in the conference room should you have your video on.
There will be no live streaming during Worship or during Breaks and Meal times.
Please ensure that your App is up-to-date as Webex have made recent changes that may prevent you from connecting
Sessions will be recorded and loaded on to the website after the conference has concluded.
Catering: Meals have been arranged for both days of the Conference, before the evening papers. Bookings are required and anyone wishing to attend these meals should contact Miss N Morrison for further information, on 0141 332 9283 or norma.morrison@fpcoffice.org by Monday, October 12.
Handout – The Theology of the Marrow Controversy:
HANDOUT
Twelve questions put by the Commission of Assembly to the Marrowmen in November 1721:
I. Whether are there any precepts in the gospel, that were not actually given before the gospel was revealed?
II. Is not the believer now bound, by the authority of the Creator, to personal obedience to the moral law, though not in order to justification?
III. Doth the annexing of a promise of life and a threatening of death to a precept, make it a covenant of works?
IV. If the moral law, antecedent to its receiving the form of a covenant of works, had a threatening of hell annexed to it?
V. If it be peculiar to believers, to be free of the commanding power of the law as a covenant of works?
VI. If a sinner, being justified, has all things at once, that is necessary for salvation? And if personal holiness, and progress in holy obedience, is not necessary to a justified person’s possession of glory, in case of his continuing in life after his justification?
VII. Is preaching the necessity of a holy life, in order to the obtaining of eternal happiness, of dangerous consequence to the doctrine of free grace?
VIII. Is knowledge, belief, and persuasion, that Christ died for me, and that he is mine, and that whatever he did and suffered, he suffered for me, the direct act of faith, whereby a sinner is united to Christ, interested in him, instated in God’s covenant of grace: Or, is that knowledge or persuasion included in the very essence of that justifying act of faith?
IX. What is that act of faith, by which a sinner appropriates Christ and his saving benefits to himself?
X. Whether the revelation of the divine will in the word, affording a warrant to offer Christ unto all and a warrant to all to receive him, can be said to be the Father’s making a deed of gift and grant unto all mankind? Is this grant made to all mankind by sovereign grace? And whether is it absolute or conditional?
XI. Is the division of the law, as explained and applied in the Marrow, to be justified; and which cannot be rejected without burying several gospel-truths?
XII. Is the hope of heaven, and fear of hell, to be excluded from the motives of believers’ obedience? And if not, how can the Marrow be defended, that expressly excludes them, though it should allow other motives?
The “Six Antinomian Paradoxes” of the Marrow:
1. A believer is not under the law, but is altogether delivered from it.
2. That a believer doth not commit Sin.
3. That the Lord can see no sin in a believer. (Numb. 23:21).
4. That the Lord is not angry with a believer for his sins. (Is. 54:9).
5. That the Lord doth not chastise a believer, for his sins.
6 That a believer hath no cause, neither to confess his sins, nor to crave pardon at the hands of God for them, neither yet to fast, nor mourn, nor humble himself before the Lord for them.
“As our obedience now is not the performance, so our sinning is not the violation, of the condition of the old covenant. Believers their sins now, though transgressions of the law, are not counted
(Rev) D W B Somerset, Convener, Training of the Ministry Committee