(Continued from page 285.)
IN the month of May after the formation of the Associate Presbytery (5th December, 1733) as noted in our last issue the Four Brethren drew up what is known as the First or Extrajudicial Testimony. When the Assembly met in 1734 the members were in a more conciliatory mood. They rescinded the objectionable Acts of 1730 and 1732—the former forbidding church courts to record dissents and protests and the latter dealing with the settlement of vacant parishes. They also passed an Act authorising the Synod of Perth and Stirling, without pronouncing any judgment on the legality or formality of the former proceedings of the church judicatories in relation to this affair, to restore the Four Brethren to communion, and to their respective charges. When the Synod met in July it accordingly “did take off the sentence pronounced by the Commission of the General Assembly, 1733, against the foresaid Four Brethren” and reinstated them in their office as ministers of their several parishes. This action of the Assembly was expected to meet with instant acceptance on the part of the Brethren. After solemn and repeated deliberation, however, they concluded that whatever joy was given by this Act of the Assembly that it was their duty to remain in a state of secession until they would see more decided proof that the course of defection against which they had protested was really abandoned. They set forth their reasons in a small pamphlet published before the meeting of Assembly (1735). The Seceders felt that the temperate measures of the 1734 Assembly were due not so much to a real desire to get rid of objectionable practices but were the outcome of a policy of worldly diplomacy forced on their opponents by men who felt that they had gone too far. That they were not wide of the mark was soon evident by some violent intrusions that took place in 1736 and in the lax dealing with one of the theological professors (Simson) whose erroneous views had been causing uneasiness in the Church. When the Brethren met at Perth on 3rd December of that year they drew up their Second, or Judicial Testimony. On the 17th May, 1738, in consequence of representations from the Synod of Perth and Stirling, and the Synod of Fife, complaining of disorderly practices pursued by the Seceding ministers, the Assembly appointed the Commission to prepare and execute a libel against them. The Commission following these instructions appointed that a libel should be executed against the eight ministers (Messrs. R. Erskine, Thomas Mair of Orwell, Thomas Nairn of Abbotshall, and James Thomson of Burntisland, had by this time cast in their lot with the Four Brethren). These ministers were summoned to appear before the General Assembly of 1739 to answer for their deeds. The Assembly deliberated two days on the subject and finally resolved to proceed on the libel drawn up by the Commission of the former Assembly. Against this decision Mr. Willison, Dundee, with four ministers and two elders, entered their dissent. The libelled ministers, while the Assembly was sitting, met and drew up a Declinature in which they declined all authority, power, and jurisdiction which the judicatories of the Church of Scotland might claim over the Associate Presbytery, or of any of its members, or any who chose to place themselves under its inspection. When called to appear before the Assembly on the 18th May they put in an appearance. The Moderator assured them that, notwithstanding all that had happened, the Assembly was willing to drop the libel and receive them with open arms, if they would return to the bosom of the Church. Mr. Mair, Moderator of the Associate Presbytery, read an act agreed upon by the Presbytery. The Assembly then caused the libel to be read, after which Mr. Mair read the Declination and then delivered it to the Moderator of the Assembly. The Presbytery then withdrew to their place of meeting. The Assembly declared the eight ministers worthy of deposition but for expediency’s sake they deferred the passing of the sentence and recommended the next Assembly to proceed against them “unless they returned to their duty and submission.” On the 28th May the Assembly, on the motion of the Rev. James Bannatyne, proceeded to consider the libel and finding it relevant and proven they did “actually depose them from the office of the holy ministry, prohibiting and discharging them, and every one of them, to exercise the same, or any part thereof, within this Church, in all time coming.” Their charges were declared vacant and the Moderator was appointed to write letters to the civil authorities, in the several places of their residence, that they might be dispossessed of their churches. This sentence was passed by a great majority but fifteen ministers and four elders dissented from it. In this way the Church of Scotland cast out men who had the ear of thousands in Scotland and the first serious rent was made in her ranks. We say the first rent because it must be borne in mind that the Society people or Cameronians had not associated with the Church at the Revolution Settlement. There were a number of ministers in the Church of Scotland who were in full sympathy with the Seceders such as Willison, Dundee, but who did not sever their connection with the Church of Scotland. The ecclesiastical standpoint of these sympathisers is set forth in Willison’s Impartial Testimony. The Seceders were severely criticised for not accepting the offers of the Church of Scotland to return from the years 1733 to 1738. They were, however, satisfied in their minds that these efforts to get them back were the outcome of a worldly policy of expediency. Their replies to their opponents are not lacking in point and in some cases show keen insight into the ecclesiastical condition of the Establishment. When the Moderator of the Presbytery of Stirling wrote Erskine asking him to return after the sentence of the 1733 Commission was removed he justified his continued secession by saying: “Some brethren call us to come in and help them against the current of defection. But now that the hand of Providence has taken us out of the current against which we were swimming and set us upon the reformation ground by a solemn testimony and constitution, it would be vain for us to endanger ourselves by running into the current again, unless our reverend brethren, who call for our help, can persuade us that our so doing will turn the current and save both them and ourselves, and so preserve the Lord’s work and testimony. In my opinion, it would be much safer for these brethren to come out of the dangerous current to us, than for us now to come back to them (Jer. xv. 19-21). No doubt, worldly interest gives a strong bias against this motion; but if it be duty, we are bound to forsake all and follow the Lord.”