BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
(Continued from page 32.)
IN July, 1645, Coleman, one of the Erastian divines, had preached a sermon before the House of Commons, in which he strongly advocated the Erastian position. In August, Gillespie preached before the Lords, and when his sermon was published he added an appendix, entitled “A Brotherly Examination of some Passages of Mr. Coleman’s late printed Sermon.” Coleman replied in his “A Brotherly Examination Re-examined.” Gillespie met Coleman’s arguments in his “Nihil Respondes.” Coleman, stung by Gillespie’s clever exposure, replied to him in the “Male Dicis Maledicis.” Gillespie’s reply was given in his “Male Audis,” in which he takes a survey of the whole Erastian controversy. But these pamphlets were but steps leading up to his greatest work, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming: or, The Divine Ordinance of Church Government Vindicated, which appeared near the end of 1646, and of which more anon. In 1647 Baillie and Gillespie laid before the General Assembly the Confession of Faith, which was ratified. The same Assembly passed a resolution authorising the publication of a series of propositions against Erastianism. These were the famous One Hundred and Eleven Propositions, in which the whole Erastian position is refuted. The following year Gillespie was called to the highest honour his Church could bestow in being placed in the Moderator’s chair. The Assembly began its deliberations on the 12th of July and did not end until the 12th of August. During the great labours of this Assembly the frail frame of this faithful young ecclesiastic was gradually getting weaker and weaker by the insidious approach of the consumption that was soon to lay him low. Feeling death near at hand, he wrote and partly dictated his “Testimony against Association with the Malignant Enemies of the Truth and Godliness.”
On the 17th day of December the end came. Patrick Simpson has preserved for us an account of these last days, which may be found in the first volume of Wodrow’s Analecta. Like Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, “when the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river side.” The saintly Rutherford was one of them. “The day; I hope, is dawning and breaking in your soul that shall never have an end.” “It is not broken yet,” he said, “but though I walk in darkness and see no light, yet I will trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon my God.” But as he went further into the valley the light of the coming dawn came to his weary eyes, and he gave utterance to his hope in the words, “Glory! glory! a seeing of God! a seeing of God! I hope it shall be for His glory!” A tombstone, erected by his relatives and friends, with a Latin inscription recording the chief actions of his life, was, with vindictive and petty spleen, broken in pieces by the order of the Committee of Estates at the Restoration. “A just indignity upon the memory of so dangerous a person,” is the spiteful comment of the Mercurius Caledonius. The storm that was to test the trustworthiness of many a fair professor’s barque had not yet broken when George Gillespie passed from the troubled scene of ecclesiastical politics, but the clouds were gathering, and he was mercifully delivered from feeling the anguish that pierced many a heart in Scotland.
The best edition of Gillespie’s works is that consisting of two volumes, with a Memoir by Rev. Dr. Hetherington, in the Presbyterian’s Armoury, and for students interested in ecclesiastical polity and the great questions involved in the Erastian controversy, the reading of these volumes is a liberal education. Gillespie’s pages, though burdened with references to authors now little known, and broken up into those numberless divisions and sub-divisions so dear to the heart of our fathers, has as clear and limpid a style as Hugh Binning, allowance being made for the differences of the subject treated.
His masterpiece, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, or the Divine Ordinance of Church Government Vindicated, was published in London at the sign of the King’s Arms in Paul’s Churchyard, 1646. It was reprinted in 1844 at Edinburgh, in the second volume of the Presbyterian’s Armoury. It has been described as “distinctly the most complete and thorough confutation in our language, perhaps in any language, of the Erastian theory.”1 The author, in laying down his thesis, has continually in view the arguments of Selden, Coleman, Hussey, and Prynne. Selden and Coleman have already crossed our path. Hussey was minister at Chesselhurst in Kent, and was a man of outstanding gifts and influence. Prynne is remembered as one of the victims of the Laudean policy, having lost both his ears as punishment for his opposition to Prelacy. He was a man of learning and a decidedly able controversialist. Gillespie’s work is divided into three books. The first book deals with Jewish Church Government, and in thirteen chapters, with an appendix, Gillespie sets himself to prove that even under the theocracy the Church was distinct from the State. For the Jews had an ecclesiastical Sanhedrim and excommunication distinct from the civil magistrate. The greater part of this book is taken up with establishing the thesis stated, that in the Jewish Church the power of discipline was exercised distinct from the State, and in doing so he deals with the arguments of Prynne and Erastus. The ease with which he quotes from Casaubon, Philo, the Talmud, Grotius, Zepperus, Piscator, Gerhard, Bucer, Walaeus, Bertranus, Buxtorf, and a host of others—many whose names are now forgotten even to students—fills one with wonder. It appears as if he did nothing else but study and read, and had the rare ability of bringing the vast stores of his learning to elucidate the subject under discussion. The second book, which in some respects is the most important of the three, deals with Christian Church Government. The first chapter is devoted to the rise, growth, decay, and reviving of Erastianism. The question is then stated, and the argument begins with the fourth chapter, which treats of the agreement and differences between the nature of the civil and ecclesiastical powers. With rare skill and ability Gillespie proceeds to prove that there is a difference between the civil and ecclesiastical powers, by showing that Christ has a twofold kingdom. As the eternal Son of God, head of all principalities and powers, He reigns over all creatures; as the Mediator, He reigns over the Church only. Now, if it can be proved that it is as the eternal Son and not as Mediator that the civil magistrate has his power from Christ, then, says Gillespie, much will have been done in deciding the Erastian controversy. In the seventh chapter he proves from certain passages of Scripture that the civil government was not given to Christ as Mediator. A goodly number of careless readers are ready to rush to the conclusion that because Gillespie denies that the power of the civil magistrate does not belong to Christ, he is taking up the Voluntary position. No such idea would ever enter the mind of any student of Gillespie’s works, but it must be admitted, from many of the expressions used, and from a forgetfulness of the standpoint from which Gillespie is arguing, the reader may readily rush to the above conclusion.1 In the eighth chapter he deals with the difficult question of the power and privilege of the magistrate in matters ecclesiastical—the circa sacra and in sacris of ecclesiastical polemics. This subject played a prominent part in the Disruption controversy, and Dr. Cunningham’s masterly pamphlet, “Remarks on the Twenty-third Chapter of the Confession of Faith as Bearing on existing Controversies,”2 deals with some misrepresentations of Gillespie’s position, and is as fine an exposition of this difficult theme from the standpoint of confessional polity as can be found. The third book deals with the subjects of Excommunication and Suspension from the Lord’s Table. The Erastians denied the Church’s power to excommunicate, maintaining that this function belonged to the civil magistrate alone. In the first six chapters the question is stated, and an exposition of several passages of Scripture is given to prove that the Church has power to excommunicate. In discussing the question of Suspension from the Lord’s Supper he proposes the question—Whether Judas received the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper? And the answer is given in the negative; but even though the affirmative could be proved, he maintains it would not nullify the Church’s right to exclude wicked persons from the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The same marvellous wealth of references and clear, logical analysis are shown in the second and third books as in the first.
Aaron’s Rod Blossoming has remained unanswered until this day. Gillespie entered into the arena with the most powerful disputants that perhaps the Erastian party ever had in this country. Men whose intellectual endowments were of the highest order and who were weighted with the rich stores of theological learning, he met them, a young man of thirty-three summers, and made the ablest of them acknowledge his prowess. Erastianism had more or less disturbed the Reformed Churches since Erastus had sent his theses in manuscript to Beza, who wrote a reply to them which led Erastus to publish his Thesum Confirmatio in 1570. The controversy was carried on with great vigour in Holland some time later, and in 1615, Walaeus—often quoted by Gillespie,—produced his able work De Munere Ministrorum Ecclesiae et Inspectione Magistratus circa illud. Revius, Apollonius, and Triglandius also wrote on the same side. The controversy broke out in England during the Westminster Assembly period when the ablest book on the Erastian side was published, viz., Selden’s De Synedriis. Dr. Hetherington1 and Dr. Mitchell2 give very full accounts of the debates in the Assembly of Divines on the subject, and for a brief historical survey of the controversy and its literature, there is nothing to equal Principal Cunningham’s in the second volume of his Historical Theology.3
WHEN believers are under all sorts of bodily and natural decay, and, it may be, have been overtaken with spiritual decay also, there is provision in the covenant to render them fat, flourishing, and fruitful, rigorous in the power of internal grace, and flourishing in the expression of it in all duties of obedience. Blessed be God for this good word of His grace, that He hath given us such encouragement against all the decays and temptations of old age, which we have to conflict withal.—John Owen.
1 MacPherson’s “Doctrine of the Church in Scottish Theology,” p. 39.
1 The civil magistrate is God’s vicegerent, but not Christ’s—that is, the magistrate’s power hath its rise, origination, institution, and deputation, not from that special dominion which Christ exerciseth over the Church as mediator and head thereof, but from that universal lordship and sovereignty which God exerciseth over all men by right of creation; in so much that there had been (for order’s sake) magistrates or superior powers, though man had not fallen, but continued in his innocence; and now, by the law of nature and nations, there are magistrates among those who know nothing of Christ, and among whom Christ reigneth not as mediator, though God reigneth over them by the kingdom of power.—Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, book ii., chap. ix.
2 Reprinted in Cunningham’s Discussions on Church Principles, chap. viii., with the title “The Westminster Confession on the relation between Church and State.”
1 Hetherington’s History of the Westminster Assembly, chap. iv.
2 Mitchell’s Westminster Assembly, chap. ix.
3 Hist. Theology, II., 569, et seq.