By Rev. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
XIII.—The Coming of a Brighter Day.
In the previous article we have seen that the night of Moderatism in the Church of Scotland was a dark one indeed, relieved only by the presence of a mere handful of ministers, separated far from each other, and ostracised by the majority of those who had the power in the Church Courts, who were bright and shining lights in their day. Apart from their own congregations they were not much in contact with the people of Scotland for it was on rare occasions that a Moderate minister would allow an evangelical minister to preach within his domain, so that in many parishes generations lived and died without hearing the Gospel preached in its purity and in its fulness. Not only so but the majority of these creatures stigmatised, as enthusiasts who should not be listened to, those who truly preached the Gospel, while their own effusions were dry, cold, formal essays on morality or some other topic, and even that was often borrowed matter. In fact, it has been known that whenever one of them wrote a sermon it went round from one parish minister to another till the manuscript was tattered and unreadable. During this period matters were equally dead in the Church Courts, and little of the contentions to be seen at a later period were heard of. Erastianism held almost undisputed sway so that when a patron presented a minister, who was everything but what he ought to be, there were very few in congregations who had as much of spiritual life as to show their disagreement. As these Moderates, who were in reality the successors of the curates left in the Church of Scotland by the Revolution Settlement, increased in number, the blight of their presence and their preaching well-nigh banished evangelical religion out of the land. Though, in later years, it awakened their ire to be referred to as Moderates, yet it is a name which they took to themselves at first when boasting that they were not infected with that enthusiasm of which they accused those who were truly evangelical.
The character of these Moderates is well delineated by Sir Richard Hill when he said, “A Moderate divine is one who has a very moderate share of zeal for God. Consequently, a moderate divine contents himself with a very moderate degree of labour in his Master’s vineyard. A moderate divine is too polite and rational to give any credit to the antiquated divinity of our articles, homilies, and liturgy. And, therefore, he seldom quotes them except it be to show his contempt for them, or to torture their meaning; nevertheless, a moderate divine is ready enough to subscribe to them, if by so doing he can get an immoderate share of church preferment. A moderate divine is always very cool and calm in his pulpit; he never argues, except when he is preaching, against such fathers of Israel as the pious and lowly Mr. Hallward; and then a moderate divine loses all his moderation. And so, I daresay, do the moderates of the kirk of Scotland, when denouncing the principles and conduct of the evangelical and zealous servants of Christ, who seek to do away with abuses which are favourable to moderatism. A moderate divine is usually an advocate for card-parties, and for all assemblies except religious ones; but thinks no name too hard for those who assemble to spend an hour or two in prayer, and hearing God’s Word.” The history of the reign of Moderatism in Scotland reveals that this description is in no sense of the word an exaggeration.
The darkness of Moderatism was, however, passing away. The gallant stand of Dr. Erskine on behalf of Foreign Missions may be looked upon as one of the first streaks of the dawn. In 1810, Dr. Andrew Thomson was translated from Perth to the New Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh, where he began a ministry which had far-reaching effects. Shortly after his induction in Edinburgh he began the publication, known as The Christian Instructor, which, at the time when it was most needed, played an important part in the cause of the pure Gospel. In 1814, the new church of St. George had been opened for worship and Dr. Thomson was fixed upon as its minister. His congregation was composed chiefly of the higher classes of society, many of whom at the time had little or no relish for the doctrines of grace. One of his biographers says of him, “In addressing himself to a congregation peculiarly exclusive and sensitive, he stood upon the high ground of his office as an ambassador for Christ; and with the Apostle of the Gentiles, to whose bold unfearing character his own in many points bore a striking resemblance, he determined to know nothing, as the subject of his ministry, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Such an attitude and such preaching was much owned of the Lord, with the result that the ranks of the evangelical party were greatly strengthened. A large number of the future ministry of the Church came under his influence while passing through the University, and in process of time they carried the torch of the Gospel to the furthest away parts of the land, so that, to an incalculable extent, he was an instrument in originating that movement which culminated in the Disruption of 1843.
The state of affairs, as he found it, and the change for the better which began to take place under his influence, are well stated by Dr. Chalmers in a sermon preached in St. George’s Church on the Sabbath after Dr. Thomson’s death. “His was the olden theology of Scotland; a thoroughly devoted son of our Church, he was through life the firm, the unflinching advocate of its articles, and its formularies, and its rights, and the whole polity of its constitution and discipline. His creed he derived by inheritance from the fathers of the Scottish Reformation; not, however, as based on human authority, but as based and upholden on the authority of Scripture alone. . . . The whole system originated in deepest piety; and has resulted in the formation of the most moral and intelligent peasantry in Europe. Yet, in spite of this palpable evidence in its favour, it fell into discredit. Along with the elegant literature of our sister country, did the meagre Arminianism of her Church make invasion among our clergy; and we certainly receded, for a time, from the good old way of our forefathers. This was the middle age of the Church of Scotland—an age of cold and feeble rationality, when evangelism was derided as fanatical, and in very phraseology was deemed an ignoble and vulgar thing in the upper classes of society. A morality without godliness—a certain prettiness of sentiment, served up in tasteful and well-turned periods of composition—the ethics of philosophy or the academic chair, rather than the ethics of the gospel—the speculations of natural theology, and, perhaps, an ingenious and scholar-like exposition of the credentials, rather than a faithful exposition of the contents, of the New Testament; these, for a time, dispossessed the topics of other days, and occupied that room in our pulpits which had formerly been given to the demonstrations of sin and the Saviour. You know there has been a reflux. The tide of sentiment has been turned: and there is none who has given it greater momentum, or borne it more triumphantly along, than did the lamented pastor of this congregation. His talents and his advocacy have thrown a lustre around the cause. The prejudices of thousands have given way before the might and the majesty of his resistless demonstrations. The evangelical system has in consequence risen prodigiously, of late years, in the estimation of general society—connected to a great degree, we doubt not, under the blessing of God, with his powerful appeals to Scripture, and his no less powerful appeals to the consciences of men.”
The influence of Dr. Andrew Thomson brought men face to face in a more serious way than ever before with the necessity of ecclesiastical reform in general, and especially in connection with the rights of congregations in the calling and settlement of their ministers. To safeguard these rights the Veto Law was passed by the Assembly in 1834. This led to many congregations exercising their rights in protesting against the settlement of undesirable presentees, and this, in turn, led to the famous Auchterarder Case which was finally decided against the Church in the House of Lords. Other cases followed, such as the Lethandy Case, and the forced settlement at Marnoch, and, in consequence of the latter case, the suspension of the majority of the Strathbogie Presbytery by the Commission of Assembly. Upon this the civil courts interfered and interdicts were served upon ministers who went to supply the parishes of the suspended ministers. These interdicts went unheeded and the pure Gospel was carried into the preserves of Moderatism with results which only the Great Day will reveal. Matters, however, proceeded step by step in the Church’s fight against the civil courts, and each step making it appear that the Church was fighting a losing battle until the final repulse by Parliament, when the legislature refused to recognise the Church’s Claim of Right. Defeats have sometimes proved more valuable than a victory to the defeated, and so it has proved in this case, for the rejection of the Claim of Right brought on the memorable Disruption of 1843 which was the greatest triumph over Erastianism which the Church of Scotland ever had. It was an emancipation from interference by the civil courts in spiritual matters and a complete separation from the ecclesiastical successors of the Episcopal clergymen left in the Church of Scotland under royal favour at the Revolution. That the Moderates were the ecclesiastical successors of the conforming curates and the Jacobite clergy who were the plague of the Church after the Revolution Settlement, is not a mere delusion as some might be ready to argue. Their conduct during the ten years conflict previous to the Disruption proves it, for they were continually a drag upon the Church in her struggle with the civil power, and this was the view of men who had passed through this conflict. One of these Disruption worthies, Dr. James Begg, says of them, “The contrast between principle and profession was never better illustrated, than in the immediate conformity of these men to the very system which they had previously persecuted. Some who had a direct hand in the previous bloody persecutions not only conformed to Presbytery, but continued to plot against and undermine the Church, and to rail against her measures even after they were taken in; and thus the foundation was laid for the moderate party in the Church, which has never had much Presbyterianism except the name, and whose recent treacherous conduct to the Church of Scotland, in revenging their own just defeat by endeavouring to subvert her constitution and the liberties of her people by the aid of the civil power, forms an exact copy of the conduct of the Jacobite clergy, whose natural successors they are.”—History of the Patronage Act.
For many years now, and especially for a few years before the Union in 1929, the Disruption of 1843 was, for obvious reasons, branded as a mistake, and a great deal of blame was attached, in certain quarters, to the honoured fathers who took a leading part in it. That they could not act otherwise and preserve a clean conscience, and also preserve, to the generations to come, an ecclesiastical heritage based on the Word of God, should be apparent to all. They were involved in a struggle which could only be decided by that Word, and if their opponents paid no regard to the authority of that Word, and persisted in their own way, they were left with no alternative. As Principal William Cunningham puts it: “A serious collision can scarcely arise between Church and State without one or other of the parties alleging, at least, that they are influenced by a regard to the authority of Scripture; and as this is the ultimate rule or standard to both parties, an allegation to this effect never can be irrelevant, and never should be set aside or disregarded, if it come from any quarter entitled to respect, and if important consequences hang upon the adjustment of the point. Whenever the authority of Scripture is pleaded by Church or State, the matter must be one of conscience, and therefore can be rightly settled only by an appeal to the laws of Him Who is Lord of the conscience; so that, if the Church and State come into collision upon any matter which either party considers to be settled in the Word of God, they must either, by consultation and discussion, come to an agreement upon Scriptural grounds, or else they must separate from each other. Before so serious a result is allowed to take place as the breaking up of an alliance between Church and State, either party is entitled to expect that the other will give them a fair hearing; will listen to and consider their Scriptural arguments, and decide the matter, professedly at least, according to the standard of God’s Word. The civil magistrate may, indeed, refuse to listen to any appeal to the Word of God, and doggedly declare that he is resolved to adhere to the compact, or to his own interpretation of it; but if so, he is certainly not executing the functions committed to him by the Word of God and by the twenty-third chapter of the Confession; and therefore is not entitled in this matter to any respect or obedience. If a dispute that may arise about a matter which ought to be determined by the Word of God, cannot be rightly and competently settled by the mere dogged determination of the civil magistrate to adhere to the compact, or to his own interpretation of it, still less can it be lawfully and satisfactorily adjusted by any of his subordinate functionaries, in the exercise of mere brute force—by interdicts and actions of damages—by civil pains and penalties.”—Discussions on Church Principles, pp. 219-220. The history of that period reveals clearly that the refusal of the civil magistrate to be directed by the Word of God was what brought on the Disruption. The Church appealed to the legislature but the legislature turned a deaf ear to her appeal leaving her no alternative but to forego the benefits of a State connection while still holding the Establishment Principle.